Operations

The flagship store has been a staple of retailing since…well, practically since retailing started. No self-respecting operation wouldn't dare to have a showpiece store, often downtown, but more recently in the dominant regional mall in its marketplace. The concept pretty much transcended merchandise classifications, price points and geography. But no more. A fascinating dichotomy has emerged in the business: fashion apparel retailers are giving up their flagships while on the other side of the retail table, home furnishings stores are …

Home Retailers Go Large Even as Fashion Flagships RecedeRead More

Gen Z is in dire straits. They’re facing the second major economic recession of their lifetimes. They’re spending a year of their formative teens trapped at home. They’re staring down the barrel at climate change, so their future isn’t looking much brighter than their present. But these kids are nothing if not adaptable. Only Change Endures Next-gens born after 1997 grew up in a time of uncertainty. It took a toll on their mental health, but it also made them savvy, strategic consumers. Glossy marketing didn’t resonate with next gens even …

2021 Forecast: Next Gens in a Brand-New WorldRead More

Remember when everyone was talking about the great retail “bifurcation?” The gap between discount and luxury retail was the trending topic up until a year ago, when Covid-19 threw all of the old rules out the window. Then consumers started buying fewer items. While merchandise began to pile up for some retailers, others missed their regular shipments due to lulls in production. The conversation has changed to how to operate retail with a simplified strategy. Now, instead of worrying about how to attract a wider range of consumers, retailers …

The Great Retail SimplificationRead More

Long in a state of decline, 2020 provided the final nail in the coffin to kill off Black Friday as we have known it. While consumer shopping trends have changed in recent years, 2020 provided a catalyst for accelerated change in two key areas: technology and behavior. Some may say that the Covid-19 pandemic delivered that fatal blow, but it's changes in retail technology and consumer shopping behavior - both of which are inextricably intertwined - that sealed Black Friday's fate. The shopping holiday will never be the same, and both retailers …

Black Friday is DeadRead More

Ever since they put that pea under the princess's mattress a long, long time ago the bedding business has been pretty sleepy… and yes, the pun was too obvious to pass up. For decades it was dominated by three big national brands, sold in department stores, furniture dealers and a vast number of local and regional specialty shops and the products were deceptively similar underneath their plain white wrappers. But over the past decade -- and especially just the last few years -- all of that has changed and there is a remarkable transformation …

The Mattress Business Gets WokeRead More

PrePan…Pan…Not-Yet-PostPan. What does the world of retail look like now? What did we learn? What did we let go of …and what changed us? Here's a retrospective look forward. 1. Shopping Safely You'd have to living in a cave not to know that digital sales have exploded in our Pan world. Just between March and April of this year, the first month of our shared Pandemic, the number of customers buying online increased in the U.S. by more than 30 percent. The dollar volume was even higher as everyday shopping was reinvented. On Black Friday, the …

An Evolutionary Reinvention of RetailRead More

You know the expression "Go Big…or Go Home?" Well, for Nordstrom, it's more like "Go Home…and Go Big." As the upscale department store faces the severest challenge in its history, ramping up its home furnishings department and offering a full-blown assortment of housewares, textiles and home décor could generate as much as $500 million in additional sales every year. No other initiative it might be considering has the potential to be as impactful as does doubling down in home. With traffic in its prime shopping center locations severely …

Why Nordstrom Needs to Go HomeRead More

Being declared nonessential during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns perfectly captures the literal truth about mall-based specialty retail. In fact, specialty stores only exist in the first place because they are magic. They invite us into beautiful stage sets, create new aspirations and help cater to our most refined tastes. Les Wexner, the one-time owner of over a dozen specialty retail chains, frequently reminded his executives that they were in the "wants" business, not the "needs" business. His most scathing (and still printable) …

Specialty Retail’s ReformationRead More