Experience

The toy market is once again – sorry, folks – in play. With recent moves by Target and Macy’s ahead of the critical fourth quarter surge in holiday-driven business, the toy and playthings category is shaping up to be as much in flux as it’s ever been in the past few years. Supply chain logjams, price increases and pandemic uncertainties only promise to exacerbate all of this. Toy Story: Last Chapter Of course, all of this comes in the context of the biggest development in toy retailing over the past 30 years: the demise of Toys’R’Us in 2018. …

Macy’s, Target Add Yet Another Chapter to the Ongoing Toy StoryRead More

Despite the fact that Covid-19 and the Delta variant are still creeping around the nation, enough people have received vaccines that highly-vaccinated regions are  "opening up" and "getting back" to pre-Covid life – mostly sans masks and social distancing. The trouble is retail has to come to terms with the fact that everything was not copacetic before the world shutdown. Great Expectations Reuniting with shoppers might feel so good, but the bloom might be off the rose quickly if shoppers aren't offered approaches and experiences that …

New Experiences and Stores Post-CovidRead More

Even as many retail companies have been working to reimagine their physical stores with experiential elements ranging from in-store events and interactive displays to entertainment, a whole new wave of businesses are now starting up where the entertainment itself is the main attraction and it’s what’s being sold. Merchandise becomes an afterthought. From Van Gogh art installations to Harry Potter VR trips to life-size recreations of Friends TV show sets, the new buzzword in the retail business is rapidly becoming “immersive.” Whether it will …

Immersive Retailing Is the Next Big ThingRead More

Here’s one for the century. The reopening of La Samaritaine in Paris redefines the whole concept of a department store. In fact, “department” is immediately antiquated and irrelevant in this new marketplace model. We recently caught up with Kevin Roche who was charged with overseeing the retail planning and design of the massive LVMH project to reimagine and reinvent a centuries-old retail business. Roche explains, “I spent seven years overseeing the store planning, design, and construction of La Samaritiane. This was in addition to …

La Samaritaine: A Dazzling MakeoverRead More

Retail discovery has yet another channel, this time it really is a channel … well actually a streaming service. Experimentation in customer discovery is extending beyond social commerce into the greater media sphere. June 2021 was a busy month for Netflix's ecommerce projects. The streaming giant cut the virtual ribbon on The Netflix Store, an outlet for limited edition collections based on Netflix programming. Also in June, the platform debuted the resplendent limited series Halston and launched the adjacent Halston X Netflix eveningwear …

Nontraditional Brands Break into RetailRead More

By the 1980s, marketers understood that when consumers had all the “essential stuff” they needed and that in the future, those shoppers would buy based on desire, driven by emotion. That supported Maslow’s well-known hierarchy of human needs, a psychological theory first put forth in the 1940s. When the majority of peoples’ physical needs for shelter, food, clothing and such have been met they can venture into the realm of personal relationships, social connections, status among peers, feelings of accomplishment—and ultimately, aspirational …

Living [and Shopping] Through Clouds of EmotionRead More

The term “self-love” has been applied to everything from showing more skin to using a meal planning journal. But marketing is no longer centered around making consumers feel bad about themselves, and I think we can all agree that is a beautiful thing. “Self-love” and “self-care” have joined spiritually themed merchandise as the newest marketing musts. The growth of these categories was accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic, during which over 1/3 of consumers increased their self-care. To date, a whopping 9 in 10 Americans practice some form of …

Is the “Self-Love” Industrial Complex Here to Stay?Read More

Luxury and streetwear are not a new combination. But with Dior, Louis Vuitton, Vetements, and more jumping aboard the streetwear bandwagon, it is undeniably the luxury sector’s new darling. Louis Vuitton is a trailblazer in the luxury streetwear market, ringing in one of the most successful collaborations to date by partnering with Supreme for a unique product line that was sold at Louis Vuitton stores. The Louis Vuitton and Supreme collaboration was successful for a few reasons. Supreme is the first billion-dollar streetwear brand in …

Nike/Louis Vuitton Marry Luxury and Streetwear. Will Consumers Support the Wedding?Read More