It turns out online shopping isn’t everything. Consumers still crave the experience of in-person brick-and-mortar retail. The entire customer experience—browsing, testing out a product, receiving good customer service—is still highly relevant, filling a desire for human connection that online simply can’t provide. The numbers prove it. According to Forbes, “Nine of 12 retail categories posted
Vaccinations are up. COVID numbers are down. Things finally seem like they’re getting back to normal. However, as retailers and offices across the nation begin to open up, data shows that companies have been experiencing difficulties finding enough people to staff all their open positions. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics, in May of 2021
Now things are starting to heat up. As of late May, COVID cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are down. Vaccination rates are up, and masks are beginning to come off. As we head into summer, we’re taking a look at experiential marketing, and how it has the potential to revitalize the retail sector, giving brands a
If you asked 100 retail industry experts about the one area facing significant challenges right now, one phrase you’d hear over and over would be supply chain management. Supply chains thrive on predictability. Yet as COVID-19 has shown us (not to mention a certain large ship getting stuck in the Suez canal), the world we
Things Should Heat Up in the Retail Sector All this good news about COVID couldn’t come at a better time for retail. That’s because traditionally, many of the big retail “holidays” happen in late-spring and summer. Mother’s Day. Graduation. Not to mention Back to School and Back to College, which have quickly grown into massive
One of the biggest issues retailers have always faced is how to wrestle with the beast known as shrink, aka return or exchange items. Online shopping adds a new wrinkle for shrink management: how exactly should retailers handle the load when customers Buy Online, Return in Store (aka BORIS)? According to David Sobie, CEO and
Now that the COVID vaccine is getting distributed, the end of the pandemic is finally in sight. It won’t be long until we start seeing customers back in stores, maybe even flush with extra spending money from another round of stimulus checks. Many of the big retail changes from COVID—such as temperature checks, enforced mask
After a year of unprecedented uncertainty and upheaval, you would expect most retailers to spend the year trying to get back to where they were before the pandemic. You’d be wrong. As we enter 2021 with multiple COVID vaccines already being deployed, many of the most influential retailers have ambitious plans for 2021—plans that will
As we say goodbye to what will be known—without an iota of understatement—as one of the most tumultuous years in world history, it’s worth looking forward to see what may await the retail industry in 2021. So far, many of the experts are using a word that didn’t get much traction in 2020: stability. Retail
The list of retailers that have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy during the COVID pandemic is truly shocking. We’ve seen some of America’s oldest and most stalwart brands like J.C. Penney, Lord & Taylor, and Nieman Marcus enter Chapter 11 restructuring. Other brands in Chapter 11 include former health giant GNC, preppy icon J. Crew,
