Plants, Fizz and the Pursuit of Healthiness at the 2018 Fancy Food Show
Three days. Six football fields of walking, 2,600 exhibitor stands, 200,000 specialty products. Eating our way through the 2018 Fancy Food Show was an exhausting – yet delicious – task. The event was never more timely. The specialty food market is on the rise, marking 12.9% growth and $140.3 billion in sales in 2017. Compare that
READ MORE >Squeezed by Retail Returns: E-commerce’s Bane Is Brick & Mortar’s Advantage
Like so many bad habits, it started out innocently. First it was two, then it became four. Before you knew it, it was up to eight. At first, it felt like a dirty little secret. Now, it’s out in the open: a point of pride, even. It’s not video gaming or vaping, it’s returning e-commerce
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Shopping Physical Stores: The New Fashion Retail Experience Is About Service, Not Products
We’ve been told the opposite again and again, but the truth is consumers still like shopping – and they still enjoy shopping physical stores. In a survey of consumers across age groups and genders, 27% of all consumers found that shopping for clothing and apparel was the most fun, and across all age groups, about a
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Grocery Trends That Are Stimulating In-Store Sales
Food and beverage grocery trends are very much a hot topic, even becoming a default cocktail party, nice-to-meet-you conversation starter. It’s interesting then, with all this focus, physical grocery store expansion slowed in 2017. But that doesn’t mean it was a bad year for the category. In fact, there was a bit of a revolution
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In-Store Shopper Happiness. Paying Attention Yields Big Results.
How can you tell when a customer is happy? We mean really happy. A smile while she walks out the door? Sales? Repeat sales? The tone of social media posts? How you measure shopper happiness, and the agility with which you respond to joy or disappointment, can be the difference between thriving and withering. The current
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A Case Study in Evolving: How Best Buy Survived to Thrive
Electronics stores are dead. Or so we thought. Best Buy, against all odds, has fought its way back to become once again a thriving electronics chain. Since they had a leadership switch in 2012, Best Buy’s shares have rocketed from $22.34 to $78.92. That’s a hefty 241.92% increase, and an incredible recovery, beating Wall Street
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Bringing the Power of the Beauty Vloggers In-Store
Vlogging, or video blogging, is revolutionizing the beauty market. Social media influencers with YouTube channels and Instagram feeds are raking in funds – often enough to subsidize an entire career – to make videos promoting brands. Beauty vloggers dedicate hours to craft videos where they demonstrate makeup trends and hairstyles and do brand comparisons. In
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Empowerment at Floor Level – Flexible Signage and Display
Nimble. Flexible. Responsive. These are the buzzwords of today’s brand and retailer. These characteristics drive brand websites, social media pages, inventory management, and even employee teams. But are you optimizing the nimbleness and responsiveness of the flexible signage and display on your selling floor? Or do you put up signs only to leave them in
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Fetching New Opportunities: Improving the Pet Store Experience
Fido, Buddy, Mr. Cat, Crackers the bird. Americans adore their pets. Millennials, owning 35% of all pets, especially consider themselves more than just pet owners. They’re pet parents,lovingly referring to Spot as their precious child and demanding nothing short of perfection in their pet store experience. So when 68% of American households own a pet, it’s
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