Macy's is going bold and fast with Market by Macy's! The 20,000 square-foot boutique opened recently in the Southlake Town Square lifestyle shopping center in Southlake, Texas, an affluent suburb of Dallas. By suggesting Macy's should go bold and fast, it's another way of saying I hope this is the beginning implementation of a grand long-term strategy for Macy's to de-massify and de-couple itself from its mall "anchors," (as ironically, the malls have become -- literal anchors dragging down most of their legacy tenants. Market by Macy's may …
The Robin Report Unveils the Retail Radicals: The Movers and Shakers of Legacy Brands
We are pleased to announce the winners of The Robin Report 2020 Retail Radicals. We have worked in collaboration with SAP on our second annual awards program that focuses on identifying radical thinkers and doers (innovators and entrepreneurial leaders) exclusively in the legacy (brick-and-mortar) sectors of the retail industry. These radicals are clearly driving the major transformations within their respective retail brands. We celebrate traditional, legacy radicals because they face challenges that are much larger and more complex than those …
The Robin Report Unveils the Retail Radicals: The Movers and Shakers of Legacy BrandsRead More
Walmart and Jet.com Failed “Marketing 101”
The leadership team at Walmart failed to develop a positioning strategy for the two brands. It appeared that the strategy was simply to operate the two brands separately on the front end (the consumer facing functions), while integrating the back-end operations, creating a synergy for both. As I wrote in 2016, analyzing Walmart (Jet) versus Amazon in terms of its online power, there were some key metric differences. Jet.com gets: Walmart's size and deep pockets, (pushing to three-quarters of a trillion dollars vs. about a hundred billion …
How Quaint: Stores Are Back in Vogue
Whenever expert sources float out a major lemming-like prediction, there are three sequential reactions. The followers react in exaggerated ways, going to the extreme opposite Then they realize they over-reacted And finally, they learn that reality is somewhere in between the prediction and their exaggerated response This accurately describes the retail industry's three-phased reaction to Amazon's mercurial rise and the onset of e-commerce, particularly on smartphones. Extreme Measures The first extreme response was shock and …
RH Ahead of Wall Street Transforming an Industry
In late December, I had two out-of-this-world experiences. Out of this world, but into the universe created by RH CEO, Gary Friedman. The first experience was among the thousand-plus Champagne drinking celebrators attending the opening of The RH Gallery at Easton Town Center in Columbus, Ohio. The second was a deep immersion into the world of Gary Friedman. The opening was the launch of museum-quality RH Galleries, housing upscale furnishings. There are now about 70 Galleries across the US. A little over a year ago, Warren Shoulberg, a …
Autos, Apparel and Resale
When the race to the bottom hits…well, the bottom (read: when there are no more costs to cut and when pricing cuts into margins) there is now a rapidly growing new channel of distribution. Apparel brands and retailers can either continue their race to the bottom, or they might actually find this new channel as a path back to robust and profitable growth. Re-commerce, pre-owned, used, resale, secondhand or whatever you wish to call this channel, is growing faster than all of apparel sales. In fact, this channel has grown 21 times faster over …
Three Valuable Reports
Alvanon has three special reports designed to help you make informed decisions, wherever you or your company are on their trajectories. When Caring for People and the Planet Means Profit How does sustainability make good business sense? Despite what some may think, profit can coexist with social and environmental impact. What makes a company sustainable and successful? Read more... Data + 3D = Efficiency! There are five easy ways to ensure a perfect denim fit, whether it's the re-invented five pocket jean with wide or tapered leg or …
My Optimistic 2020 Playbook…with Caveats
Heading into the home stretch of the 2019 Holiday season it looks like a bipolar mix of optimistic mania on one extreme and relative ho-hum on the other. Customer Growth Partners holds the mania ticket, predicting 5.6 percent growth (even up from their original 4.3 percent). And at the opposite pole, NPD is forecasting a relatively unexciting 2.7 to 3.2 percent. With six fewer shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year over last and high levels of inventory due to early over-buying to offset potential tariff increases, I would …