Consumers are still trapped at home and they’re picking up some new hobbies. The DIY market is booming, and Euromonitor predicts that DIY sales will grow by 6.1 percent globally in the new year. However, when researching the category, one quickly notices an interesting discrepancy: there is no universally accepted definition of what constitutes DIY. I was amused to see Statista break DIY sales down into three sectors –– home centers, lumberyards and hardware stores –– when that’s obviously not the full extent of the vertical. How We Define …
Ralph Lauren: Maintaining a Brand During a Pandemic
I'm a Ralph Lauren aficionado. Long a fan of the brand and its overarching idea, "The World of Ralph Lauren," I continue to think it is the best articulated and most consistently executed brand in the fashion, apparel and retail sector -- and beyond. I've written several articles about Ralph Lauren for this publication, beginning in 2014, explaining how the brand is defined and controlled in every aspect -- from an identifiable product, to romantic and aspirational advertising, to its relationship with customers across media. Ralph Lauren's …
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The New Consumer Faces an Anxious Future
Conventional wisdom insists the world as we’ve come to know it this past year balances precariously on a polarizing precipice: economic instability vs. the stock market’s irrational exuberance. Remember what happened to irrational exuberance? Consumer behavior today straddles a tipping point. To be clear, marketers are balancing the same divide. Poised on this teeter-totter, the key question looms: wither brands that understand and serve The New Consumer? Fairytale Moments Today’s reading of reality reminds us of the ballet version of The …
The Retail Apocalypse: Up Close and Personal
The Great American Shopping Mall, a truly unique 20th century phenomenon, emerged for the first time in the late 1960s and exploded across the United States over the next three decades. Tracking alongside the interstate highway system and embedded in newly formed and growing suburban communities, the Great American Shopping Center hollowed out downtown retailing districts in hundreds of U.S. cities. Local and regional department stores staked out anchor positions in all of those malls, (mostly enclosed but some open-air in warmer climes) and a …
That Was the Year That Was…and Wasn’t
The genesis of the state of the retail industry today in the U.S. began about a quarter century ago as a slowly rolling transformation resulting from the launch of the smartphone. And you could add Amazon into the mix as an accelerant. The slow roll was catapulted forward at warp speed with the onset of Covid-19 early this year. It propelled both the demise of those retailers who were pivoting too slowly or not at all, and the success of those who were strategically shifting their business models to align with tech-armed next-gen consumers. The …
Corporate Social Justice Is Now a Permanent Feature of the Retail Landscape
Retail, like much of the rest of corporate America, is entering an era of corporate political activism. In the wake of last week’s seizure of the Capitol building in Washington, DC by pro-Trump supporters, Fortune 500 heavyweights are now weighing in. JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs are pausing all political contributions to both Republicans and Democrats for the next six months while others, such as the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association are going a step further by are suspending political contributions to all lawmakers who objected to …
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Malls Can Still Matter
The news on the mall front remains depressing at best. Coresight Research, along with many other respected firms, continue to predict as many as 25 percent of the nation’s malls may close over the next three to five years. And there could be even more “if we can’t stop the bleeding,” said Coresight CEO Deborah Weinswig. Currently there are about 1,000+ indoor shopping malls in the U.S. But the survivors may not be the silver lining in the dark cloud hanging over malls. Of the malls that make it – mostly the A-class and better B-class malls – …
The Future CEO
Ideally, in order to excel in today's fashion and retail marketplace a top senior executive needs to have strong engineering skills to match an experienced marketing background that informs a deep understanding of how to sell fashion products across the world. Add to this, knowledge of all the accounting requirements, investor relations skills and overall management expertise any CEO must possess. He or she also has to report to a board of directors that in many instances is only marginally educated in most of these new-world requirements. Note …