Are You Ready for the Next Level of Business Casual?

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Now that about one-third of Americans are fully vaccinated, businesses are considering when to bring office employees back to the workplace. But after more than a year that saw Covid-19 give new meaning to business casual -- sales of pajamas more than doubled last year over 2019 -- employees and retailers alike are wondering what will be the new definition of professional attire. Hint: Casual and comfortable will play major roles. Work Shift Ford Motor Company is planning to offer 30,000 employees a hybrid option to work from home, only …

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Advertisers Bid Farewell to Cookies

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The free flow of consumer data that has fed the digital advertising ecosystem has slowed, and will soon be a trickle. As the iOS 14.5 update began downloading into iPhones in late April, Apple, by switching its tracking default from opt-out to opt-in made advertisers dreaded worst-case scenario a reality. Now iPhone users, who are generally considered to be the more affluent consumer cohort, must actively grant permission for any app to track their activity across other companies' apps and websites. Absent this authorization, the operating …

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Walmart and Gap Go Home

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Walmart has fallen into The Gap. It no doubt hopes it’s a successful journey…even if history suggests otherwise. Last month the biggest of the big, Walmart, said it was partnering up with casual apparel retailer Gap to bring a line of home furnishings products to, at least initially, its online business and potentially its stores. Gap had announced earlier that it was looking for a home for…well, home, but the Walmart connection didn’t seem to be the obvious choice at first glance. After all, Gap was the store of choice for the …

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Good Corporate Governance Is Key in Today’s Callout Culture

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Recently we were asked by a colleague about the goals of corporate compliance and governance in today’s corporations, both large and small. Corporate compliance is how a board of directors (BOD) oversees a company and the strategy it uses to take into consideration all its stakeholders: management, employees, stockholders, suppliers, customers, and the public. Governance consists of policies and procedures, rules and practices that govern the BOD, CEO, managers, employees, and customers to ensure the financial health and success of a company …

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Leveraging Peer Reviews

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If you somehow managed to miss the message that the customer is firmly in control in the driver’s seat, it may be too late for you. In 1990, Sam Walton said, “There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.” His commonsense business approach has been amplified over 30 years later by the digital marketplace, making transactions more transparent and giving the consumer more vocal power to influence the purchase journey. With the explosion of …

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ABG, SPARC and JCP Fading Into The Sunset

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Great brands don’t die, they just fade away. And where do they go to expire? Authentic Brands Group, of course. Talk about rolling up a bunch of losers in fading-away mode: ABG partnered with another fade-away, Simon Properties (creating SPARC – Simon Properties Authentic Brands Retail Concepts). Now CEO David Simon is talking about putting ABG’s dying brands into an even more impressive fadeout: JC Penney. That deal with the ABG brands may indeed be an anchor (but of the reverse kind from what it used to mean) that will take the entire …

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Is the Retail Campus the Next Small Thing?

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Even as many national retailers have been opening bigger and bigger stores -- Super Centers, Combo Stores, Hyper Markets and all variations of Giant and Mega -- other companies are going in the opposite direction, exploring the concept of the retail campus. Clustering From big chains like RH to specialty operations like Magnolia Home, the concept of clustering a group of individual stores together to create a single-branded shopping complex represents the first new take on physical retailing in generations. Not since Toys’R’Us invented the …

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The Buy Now, Pay Later Disruptors

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With news that both Melbourne, Australia-based Afterpay and Minneapolis native Sezzle are planning IPOs on U.S. stock exchanges in the months ahead, joining San Francisco-based Affirm which bowed on the Nasdaq in January,  it’s clear that the Buy Now, Pay Later sector has matured from that of novel fintech startup concept to one with major staying power. And the repercussions of this trend on how customers pay will have a lasting and fundamental impact on the U.S. retail landscape, and beyond. BNPL For anyone not familiar with Buy Now, Pay …

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