(This is the first in a mini-series of posts reviewing retail concepts that have caught my eye. Check in tomorrow and the following day for two more of my takes on what makes a store more than a store – a real experience.) American Eagle’s flagship store in Times Square is breathtaking, but it’s what’s […]
In just the past week, I’ve had several conversations about the future of retail – and how drastically shopping as we’ve known it is going to change. From these provocative discussions, it’s become clear to me that retailers must change the way think about and build their brands, or face extinction. […]
For the retail industry, the Great Recession has become the Great Malaise. Last week, Karen Talley reported in the Wall Street Journal that most retailers missed expectations for May. While there were some bright spots, the 25 retailers tracked by Thomson Reuters posted 4.9% growth in May same-store sales, instead of the expected 5.4% gain. […]
(Welcome to the second in a two-post series on how retailers manage the choice conundrum. This is written by C. B. Whittemore, Chief Simplifier of Simple Marketing Now, a marketing communications consultancy focused on simplifying customer interactions with social media and content marketing. The first post, REI Makes Choosing Easier, which I wrote, can be found […]
Bryan Pate, Co-Founder and Co-President, of ElliptiGO has set some aggressive growth goals for his $2MM company which manufactures and sells a fitness apparatus that provides a low-impact outdoor running experience – it’s essentially an outdoor elliptical machine. He laid out his plans at a recent MIT Enterprise Forum, a unique educational seminar-type business gathering […]
My husband, usually a calm, mild-mannered man, recently experienced something which left him completely frazzled and frustrated – he went to the grocery store. Usually I’m the family food shopper but thanks to a surgery I had on one of my feet, Chris had to take over some of the domestic duties for awhile. And, […]
Whew! What a year it’s been. Over the past year, my brain has pumped out 1778 tweets, 81 brand-as-business bites™ blog posts, 17 videos, 11 published articles, 11 brand-as-business brief newsletters, 10 podcast interviews, 8 QSR Magazine columns, 8 Slideshare documents, 7 speaking engagements, 3 guest blog posts, and countless random thoughts – not to […]
The holiday season is upon us and retailers are gearing up for the increased sales volume. One way they’re doing so is hiring more salespeople. In a piece in the Wall Street Journal, Karen Talley reported the retail industry added 28,000 positions in October, according to figures from the Labor Department. Macy’s Inc. is reportedly […]
Those of you who are Star Trek fans would have felt right at home with me the other day. I went to check out the new Microsoft store which just opened at Fashion Valley mall here in San Diego because I wanted to do a compare/contrast to the Apple store in the same mall. My […]
Now that summer is officially here, I wanted to take a look back at the past 6 months and see what kinds of conversations had been sparked by brand-as-business bites™. The following are the top posts from each month in terms of number of re-tweets, comments, or emails they generated – I’ve also included some […]