Courage

(Stop) Measuring Sales Per-Square-Foot in an Omnichannel World

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Should you evaluate the performance and efficacy of a physical retail store the same way you evaluate an ecommerce store or a mobile game? The short answer is not exactly – but the gaps are not that big. By applying methodologies and disciplines from one platform to the other, we can better understand what makes our users and visitors return to our store, app, or platform, and gain a deeper understanding of successful customer engagement. Measuring What Matters KPIs such as ARPU/ARPPU, Retention Rates, Stickiness, and LTV are widely used …

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Is Our Corporate Culture Failing?

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Some things never change; I’ve been in the retail business for over 40 years and worker dissension is nothing new. But who’s making all the noise has. Unions are back; organizing is in. Jaz Brisack organized a Starbucks in Buffalo; she was a Rhodes scholar. Chris Smalls had no college education at all but organized Amazon workers in the Staten Island warehouse and is moving onto the national scene. (He got a cover story in New York Magazine, too). This new crop of organizers sees opportunities everywhere, and those companies that prided …

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The More Customers Walk Your Store, the More Your Space Is Worth

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Location, location, location. How many times have we heard this when measuring the intrinsic value for a property? In shopping malls, location is everything for any store focused on attracting the maximum number of shoppers. If a store is sited in a high-traffic area, chances are more shoppers will enter that store to browse its products. Leasing teams equipped with Spatial Intelligence technology can quantify the relative value of each location based on foot traffic and impressions in real-time, placing value on their leasing strategies …

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Key Merchandising Strategies for Economic Uncertainty

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We keep hearing about the impending recession which would mean a pull back in consumer demand just in time for the holiday season. But recent industry reports are showing a “business as usual” behavior both with shoppers and with manufacturers. Amazon’s Prime Day topped $12 billion dollars and combined retail and food service sales grew +8.4 percent for the same month of June YOY. These reports are providing some breathing room for brands who are coming off of a two-year pandemic, broken supply chains and, as they say, unprecedented times. But …

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Inventory Apocalypse

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As the famed retail icon, Mickey Drexler once said, “Inventory is the enemy of every retailer in the world.” And in today’s totally unknown and incalculable aftermath of ongoing waves of Covid, an inventory apocalypse is ravaging the retail industry. Last Saturday, the New York Times ran an article, titled “Retail’s ‘Dark Side:’ As Inventory Piles Up, Liquidation Warehouses Are Busy.” Duh!! What an understatement. When the CEOs of Walmart and Target indicated they were caught “flat-footed” with the amount of excess inventory that had piled up, …

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The LARPing World Comes to Mainstream Retail

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LARP or Live Action Roleplay is no longer relegated to creative high schoolers in parking lots. As we emerge from the pandemic, consumers of all ages are driven to escapist, in-character retail experiences. The reason? Most consumers nowadays have more to escape from and looking “cool” has become more about individualism than conformity. It’s the perfect environment for people to get weird. “Experiential retail” isn’t just a buzzword that retailers whip out to describe pop-up locations or in-store events. Themed experiences such as the …

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CPG Faces a Crisis of Conscience

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By now we all know the adage, “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks a nail.” Our familiarity with the saying does not negate its relevance in a world riven by inflation, supply chain woes, employee demands and the looming specter of recession. Yet, it appears that those of us in the packaged goods industry have been consigned to the hammer brigade. Hammering the Message Just witness the edicts emanating from Cincinnati and beyond: “We must…” what? What do you imagine the CEO of the company which makes absolutely every product we …

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Why Microplastic Pollution is Still Fashion’s Concern

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Although numerous residents of New Jersey are still openly bemoaning the plastic bag ban that took effect in May, millions of people around the globe are participating in Plastic Free July, an initiative of the Plastic Free Foundation, an organization whose vision is “seeing a world free of plastic waste.” Included in that waste is microplastic ocean pollution, more than a third of which stems from apparel-made synthetic fibers. Critical Microplastic Mass At this point, the majority of all apparel is made from polyester and other …

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