As retail resale has evolved from Goodwill and the neighborhood thrift store to the myriad of recommerce websites, we have witnessed a watershed moment in fashion. Secondhand goods have become highly sought after by an increasingly demographically diverse group of consumers. And at the apex of this movement are Next Gen buyers. However, the duality of Gen Z’s sustainability mindset alongside their obsession with fast fashion is one of today’s major “squaring the circle” quandaries. Getting on the Brand Wagon With the growth of secondhand …
Driving Meaningful and Enduring Retail Change
I recently returned from NRF’s 2023 “Big Show” in New York, along with nearly 40,000 of my new best friends. There were plenty of shiny new objects such as holograms, smart mirrors, the metaverse, and the like. These innovations certainly create great press, and buzz. True the hundreds of keynotes, panels, and featured sessions by some of the retail industry’s most noteworthy leaders and observers and the thousands of vendors touting their tech on five massive Expo levels are both mind and foot numbing. Also true, although this year’s …
CEO Craig Jelinek Leads Costco with Vision and Empathy
It seems like there has been a strong exodus of retail CEOs in 2022, particularly among highly visible retailers including Bed Bath & Beyond, Gap, Sephora, Under Armour, Bath & Body Works, FootLocker, and Kohl’s. There is no obvious thread that neatly explains such turnover. Certainly, the pandemic has changed the retail landscape, which may well have contributed to some of these departures. We’ve also seen a rise in corporate raiders putting pressure on boards to increase shareholder returns. Often those short-term strategies …
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New Retail: How the “Store” Will Undergo Transformation
For the vast majority of the 20th century, retailing had been largely transactional. The store was the place where the goods were seen, sold, and stored (hence the term). With the advent of ecommerce that definition became questioned, and the change-averse retail industry was challenged, and became progressively under siege. Retailers who were already outside their comfort zone prior to the pandemic got pushed to the limit, and in some cases over the limit. The tsunami-like wave that compressed five to seven-years of ecommerce maturation …
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Toys Are Battling It Out This Holiday
After two years of record breaking, pandemic fueled toy sales, the market has chilled from red-hot to cool-blue. According to NPD, for the first six-months of 2022, the market grew by just 2 percent to $11.4 billion between January and June. NPD concluded that customers are making fewer trips to the stores for toys and buying less because of price increases. No doubt retailers are bracing for a less than stellar holiday season. There are, however, category outliers that are performing very well. Those of us whose kids were possessed by the …
Gifting With a Purpose
For gift givers, convenience and flexibility are the two key benefits of gift cards, driving their adoption among people, companies, and marketers the world over. Not so much for the recipient. As efficient and utilitarian as these cards are, they are also highly impersonal and typically have little to do with the tastes, sensibilities, and style of the recipient. Nonetheless, the United States Gift Cards Market was estimated at $158.26 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach $167.71 billion in 2022. It is projected to grow at a 6.25 percent …
Amazon and the Big Boxes
Amazon’s Anguish The “defining” pure-play ecommerce behemoth Amazon flourished over its first two decades, despite lacking storefronts and retail real estate. But that was then. The tailwinds that recently propelled Amazon through the pandemic have become headwinds with the cooling of ecommerce along with a distribution and fulfillment migraine that will not quit. According to recent reports, Amazon’s online retail sales, which include store-based grocery delivery and pickup, dropped for the second straight quarter, falling 4.3 percent in …
The New Age of Wellness: Retailers, Listen Up!
Amidst rising inflation, crippling student debt, unaffordable housing, rounds of layoffs, a lingering pandemic, and a looming recession, workers of all ages are reaching a breaking point. But these stains are most notably affecting our youngest workers, Gen Y and Gen Z. According to LinkedIn, 66 percent of Generation Z wants a company culture built on mental health and wellness. Wellable Labs’ 2022 Employee Wellness Industry Trends Report found that 90 percent of employers reported increasing their investment in mental health programs, 76 …