Retailers have traditionally thought in terms of distribution channels and have structured their internal systems and metrics around them. But that channel-centric thinking is at odds with how customers actually engage with retailers. For example,… Read More
Everyone wants to be part of a brand’s come up story nowadays. In today’s retail startup environment, entrepreneurs start off small and unknown with the hope of a rags-to-riches narrative with a devoted millennial following.… Read More
You can hardly call it a grocery store anymore. The brand-new Whole Foods Market, just opened in Atlanta, is so much more than a supermarket and clearly points the direction for how food retailers are… Read More
Recently the Wall Street Journal reported that Kroger has struggled to come to grips with the impending online grocery upheaval. While Kroger has tried many new things – from testing digital shelving to embarking on… Read More
For sure, Amazon took all the oxygen out of the room and the breath away from the entire retail industry. And it continues … except for one retailer. As it turns out, Amazon was but… Read More
We have been reporting about the customer service experience for years – following the arc of the neighborhood store in the 50s where everyone knows your name to the AI-infused tech age of drone delivery… Read More
It’s hard to sit on the sidelines and read the dialogue about Hudson Yards and the recent Wall Street Journal story about declining traffic to the American Mall. I am delighted that the prescriptive solution… Read More
Four years later, I still say, “The TJX business model is not easily copied.” In fact, one could make the case that the specific differentiators and advantages that have been crafted into its DNA cannot… Read More
No retail segment is more competitive than the mass segment, where retailers sell many of the same SKUs and must therefore compete based on differentiated consumer perceptions of value, access, convenience and customer experience. In… Read More
Shoptalk and South by Southwest ran consecutively this year. In spending time at both, certain correlations stood out. The implementation of artificial intelligence in retail was examined in detail at Shoptalk, whereas its role in… Read More
