Strategy

For the better part of a year – ever since the onset of Covid-19 – the doomsday diviners of retail have held center stage, pushing the narrative that brick-and-mortar retail will never come back, or if it does, it will surely be in some new, emasculated form that will be virtually unrecognizable to a time traveler from 2019. “Malls throughout America are suddenly running out of time,” exclaimed a recent USA Today report on the state of retail.  Rhode Island’s Providence Journal went even further, stating that “the coronavirus pandemic will not …

Five Macrotrends That Will Drive Traditional Retail’s Big ComebackRead More

The other afternoon on Dateline White House on MSNBC, Nicole Wallace mused with a female guest about what will happen when they can go outside again. Their consensus: They need elastic-banded pants. Their knowing smiles suggest we all will expand our wardrobes. After a year of relying on figure forgiving leggings, t-shirts and hoodies, entering the once and future world of wardrobes frozen in the amber glow of our year-ago closets may come as yet another shock to our already traumatized selves. Yet it must be said, our year of living Covidly …

Betting Big on Going BiggerRead More

If you continue to think of Ikea as that Swedish -- or is it Finnish? -- retailer with those humungous stores on the outskirts of town, lightweight furniture with funny names that is often difficult to put together...and the home to tasty little meatballs, you might want to rethink that opinion. Swedish Export Over the past several years the Swedish retailer -- and yes, they are from Sweden -- has undergone a remarkable transformation that has put it in the forefront of not only progressive retailing but also progressive thinking when it …

So, You Think You Know Ikea?Read More