Retail insights at the intersection of now and next. Unfiltered. Unbiased
It is mind-boggling that a vertically integrated direct-to-consumer industry disruptor, generating 70 percent margins on a brilliantly conceived offering, ended up selling it for pennies on the dollar. But honestly, how many people want to buy a $15,000 bed?
A lot of companies think that loud and messy and customizable and, honestly, an unserious aesthetic proves a human actually made it. Packaging with the low-fi, Nickelodeon slime-esque aesthetic of hyper goo maximalism is the perfect in-group signifier to make next gen impulse purchases move.
Three companies built and sold with more than $200 million in sales. Refreshingly honest, T says part of her career trajectory is that she’s simply “not particularly employable.” She’s been disruptive her whole life, approaching everything with curiosity and imagination, never bound by how “something is supposed to be done.”
The boom and bust of Korea’s AI-fuelled financial markets could be foreshadowing a wider global meltdown. The way its digital natives are dealing with their reversed fortunes could also be a leading indicator of how the rest of the world’s consumers will cope.
We get that companies want to protect their valuable brand names, but Buc-ee’s, really? Over the past few months, they’ve sued at least half a dozen retailers—maybe more—for names and/or logos that they say are too similar to their iconic beaver character.
Join Shelley and Alice Pope, author of The Trust Algorithm: How Leaders Build Trust with Generative AI to get up to speed on a current trust recession. Alice says that we are facing more customer data than ever yet have a deeper skepticism about AI than ever.
Are you sure you’re measuring what matters? Talk to the finance team, and they have entrenched benchmarks defining a brand’s success. What they don’t have are the intangibles that can make or break long-term success. These measurements can baffle an analytically trained financial mindset. The case in point: Return on Experience (ROX) is a concept that defies the logic and the measurable precision of ROI to a traditionalist. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be measured.
Fashion brands are facing the prospect of higher inventory costs thanks to an EU ban on destroying unsold apparel, accessories and footwear. As of July 19, large companies are now prohibited from incinerating or sending unsold products to landfill. Why major brands ever thought this was morally justifiable is another question. The new rules also cover customer returns and force fashion retailers to prioritize selling products through discounts or alternative markets, donating them or preparing them for reuse.
I’ve spent four decades walking supermarket aisles and restaurant floors trying to spot the next place where food and commerce would collide. I’ll admit this one surprised me. Cannabis retailers in San Francisco are about to become the new competition for restaurants and supermarkets
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