Retail insights at the intersection of now and next. Unfiltered. Unbiased
After I listened to NPR’s Life Kit broadcast, I drove to Burbank over the weekend to see for myself, and I counted 214 digital price tags in one aisle of the local Walmart. Not one of them changed while I stood there, but that doesn’t settle the ESL war.
As celebrity merchandise gets increasingly extravagant (see Beyoncé’s $900 empty box), a new kind of endorsed merchandise is on the rise: food. Some of the most memorable celebrity partnerships take place at an unlikely venue—the drive-thru.
Walmart and Macy’s are inching upward into fashion-forward style, and iconic couture designers are spreading a version of their vision to a more mass audience at Uniqlo, Zara, Gap, and H&M. Is it working?
At first, one might think that this DTC cookware company, being sued by two of the biggest players in the business— Groupe SEB and Meyer—for false and misleading claims, that then turned around and used the suit in their marketing to prove the worth of their products would be a TRR Hit.
Join Haley and Zoe Switzer, Chief People Officer at Jeni’s, as they discuss how to build a culture that nurtures a workforce. As Zoe says, “Maybe more than 50 percent of our quality of life is determined by, or at least heavily influenced by, what happens at work. So, the privilege of being an employer is a really big deal; you have an opportunity to have a meaningful impact on people’s lives in terms of whether they can put food on the table and pay their rent, or whether they develop skills that serve them well at work.”
Studies of decluttering, time poverty, and “de-influencing” all suggest consumers want less. The marketplace tells a more complicated story. Consumers haven’t stopped spending; they have become far more deliberate about what earns their money. The basket is becoming a portfolio, and every item in it has to earn its place.
If you thought Sweden was a conservative nation devoted to wellbeing and simple style, keep your eye on developments here as Stockholm increasingly becomes a bellwether for the next phase of its emerging influence. An entire nation believes radical transparency is business as usual and that values-based consumer culture is likely to seep into other markets. The capital’s younger, tech-savvy customers are part of a global movement. Sweden could be an unlikely catalyst to unlock sustainability as a convenient and profitable, truth.
By transforming the physical store from a black box into a source of real-time intelligence, spatial intelligence provides retailers with new insights to drive revenue and profits.
Savvy retailers enhance value through the treasure-hunt experience with a self-rewarding customer journey. The formula can be replicated across other retail formats; a rare find of an award-winning wine at a discounter such as Aldi is a pure treasure. Surprise and excitement can win over consumers just as much as price. The question retailers need to ask is: What’s your treasure-hunt strategy? And how do you make it relatable to your customers, not a knock-off meme that consumers will recognize and reject long before you do?
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