Full disclosure: I did not set foot in a store this season. In normal times, my in-store holiday shopping mood toggles between energized and irritated. Wandering through a crowded, slightly overheated store, dragging a coat with a bulky scarf-stuffed sleeve looking for inspiration is a trial, but there have been moments when retail kismet struck. During holiday 2019, I experienced such karma at Nordstrom’s New York flagship, achieving a satisfied shopper’s dopamine hit, and walking out with several gifts. A Nothing-Like-Normal Holiday 2020 In …
Technology
Warby and the Natives
Tons have been written about DTC native brands, the startups, viral unicorns still trying to make a buck, and those new brands who are making lots of bucks. Most of them were created by young tech geeks, business school grads and kids with a lot of common sense and empathy for what people want. Digital-native retail brands address the pain points that people do not want to experience to acquire their wants and desires. And most of these young entrepreneurs have a technology bandwidth that was growing exponentially in their brains when they were …
Four Startups Reinventing Retail
The Robin Report Innovators Network introduces you to startups with novel solutions that improve the performance and profitability of retail and brand operations. Our first four Innovators have engineered actionable systems to streamline retail in everything from contract management and fit to employee accountabilities and shared data platforms. With the thousands of startups that have a hope and a dream, our Innovators are providing relevant solutions throughout the industry. Why Start Up? With so many startups in the retail-tech arena, it's …
Here’s How Retailers Can Leverage AI During Covid
If it feels like the 47th month of the pandemic, you're not alone. Sure, there were those who said they were "made" for Covid and had no issue holing up and avoiding people. But, according to sources, those same individuals are now comparison pricing vacuums at Costco and calling it an "outing." Uneven Recovery People are bored. But Covid is hovering over us like a cruel dictator, eliminating the need or desire to buy clothes for conferences, date nights, reunions, parties, after-work drinks. The positive takeaway from the tech sector, …
DTC High Tech Beauty Solutions
You gotta hand it to L'Oréal for sheer transparency. In the wake of its mid-July announcement that it was pulling the plug on Clarisonic, it immediately began a digital fire sale, offloading all the iterations of the once-untouchable sonic cleansing brush on its website at a deep discount, along with the replacement heads and companion skincare. By August, the cyber shelves were wiped clean. "We are completely sold out on Clarisonic.com and the sale has now ended," reads a notice on the brand's home page. "Our sale continues in stores, so …
Welcome to the Data Sphere
In the mid-1980s, at a lecture in New York, author and counterculture visionary Robert Anton Wilson introduced his theory about the growth of information, called the "Jumping Jesus Phenomenon." In short, his theory was that it took until the time of Jesus (1 A.D. or thereabouts) for all the knowledge that was in the world in 1500 B.C. to double. It took 250 years for that body of knowledge to double again and then 150 years to double after that. By 1750, knowledge had increased by four times, or four Jesuses. By 1973, we had the equal to 128 …
The Quarantine Data Dearth
My shopping patterns have changed, have yours? Nozzle, a British consultancy that specializes in Amazon sales optimization released a report on recent Amazon search trend results. The insights reveal the top search terms. The lead searches for June in the U.S. were: Facemasks Lysol wipes Reusable facemasks Other popular items in the top ten include hand sanitizer and desk chairs. The July numbers were broken down differently, but the top two items were identical to June. Our consumer behavior has been flipped on its head. This …
Livestreaming: It’s Big in China, Is the US Next?
The future of livestreaming depends not just on who you are, but also where you are…and whether you understand exactly what livestreaming actually is. Livestreaming is a term being thrown around the retail world with increased frequency these days -- but describing it is not easy. Start with a TV shopping show like you might find on QVC or HSN. But put it on your mobile phone rather than your television. Then layer on social media functions, the ability to interact with what's on your screen in a way that's impossible on one-way electronics …