Retail insights at the intersection of now and next. Unfiltered. Unbiased
T’s professional journey has been spontaneous: “I would say that if you look at my career trajectory, no one could say it was well planned. I got out of the army, went to school, got a fellowship, moved to Syria on an academic fellowship, and came back and never finished school. Then I ended up working for some tech dudes.”
AI assistants could do what retail media networks promise but often fail to deliver: increase basket size without making shoppers feel relentlessly barraged by transactional ads. The macro-opportunity for any retailer is to connect a shopper to information that changes a purchase decision and deliver a better customer experience. If an AI assistant can do that, the tool is an asset, not a gimmick.
We don’t usually call out a company twice in a month, but honestly this deserves it. We recently cited Buc-ee’s ridiculous lawsuits against companies with what they thought were similar names or animal logos.
Join Shelley and David Wachs, founder of Handwrytten, as they reveal why personal attention beats personalization. They unpack what scalable tools retailers can use to keep customers feeling valued.
And just like that, we seem to be at war with our closest neighbor, best ally, and first or second-biggest trading partner (depending on how you do the math). Now who’s to blame?
Although a convergence of economic and geopolitical pressures is souring consumers’ outlook and pulling sentiment down, when looking at their actual spending—especially heading into the back-to-school and college season—they seem to put those concerns aside if you’re looking for a correlation between sentiment and spending.
So many DTC companies have struggled after going public; Reformation’s IPO comes at a time when its customer base has significantly diminished, and the brand may no longer inspire the same confidence that fueled its rise. Can Reformation transcend younger consumers’ newfound negative perceptions?
The latest sourcing choice for U.S. importers? Surprise! It’s China. The Trump tariffs were supposed to punish China by driving American companies to shift their buying to other countries. It hasn’t quite worked out that way. So, it’s back to the tariff future.
Hey, don’t get us wrong, we’re all in favor of retailers testing new store concepts and experimenting with different formats. But how long is it going to take Nike to get anything right? The report that they are shutting down their Nike Live—rebranded as Nike Well Collective (whatever that means)—it’s another dead end for a brand that was once king of the footwear and sports apparel sectors; now it seems in a foot race to failure.
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