BrainTrust Query: Will Same-Day Delivery Become a Retail Necessity?
According to the founder and CEO of the U.K. delivery service, Shutl, American retailers are "freaked out" over the prospect of Amazon achieving nationwide same...
Disney Store Makes Digital Magic
In her presentation at this week's eTail West event, Disney Stores' VP of ecommerce and marketing, Elissa Margolis, noted that, even though the Disney Store div...
From Which to When: Marketers Mine New Synergies in Social Media
Not that long ago, social media was regarded a simple game of multiple choice, but presentations at last week's eTail West conference illustrated just how much ...
What Will It Take to Improve the Mobile Shopping Experience?
The eye-popping statistics that permeated last week's eTail West showed that growth in mobile has exceeded just about everyone's expectations. Yet many companie...
BrainTrust Query: How Can Retailers Harness Digital’s Fragmented Future?
In a recent article for The Guardian, journalist and science fiction author Cory Doctorow expounded on dynamics that have far-reaching and potentially contentio...
BrainTrust Query: Retail CMO Coming of Age or Fading Away?
Perhaps no other executive role within retail and brand marketing has seen more upheaval in recent years than that of the chief marketing officer. While some co...
BrainTrust Query: The New Big Data Mandate – Consider the Source
A recent article for Bloomberg Businessweek entitled "The Case against Digital Sprawl," argues that companies need to get ahead of the extreme data density bein...
BrainTrust Query: Navigating Retail’s White Out
Identifying and seizing white space opportunities was once a lot easier. Today, it requires hitting a moving target, as retailers continue to market their own b...
BrainTrust Query: Retail’s ‘Nonzero’ Game Plan
A natural tension exists between cooperation and competition, particularly as digital media make large-scale content sharing possible, but not always comfortabl...
PLBuyer: Should Stores Showcase PL More?
Consumers have a lot of choices when it comes to brands, so what can you do as a retailer to make them see that your private label brand is the best? Presentati...
BrainTrust Query: Oh SoLoMo!
Social. Local. Mobile. The term "SoLoMo," is mash-up that addresses how shoppers are interacting with brands on all three levels simultaneously. How should reta...
BrainTrust Query: Inspiration Point (of Sale) – Tumblr’s Retail Trajectory
What if someone figured out a way to layer retail onto an existing inspiration hub? Digital agency Coexist Digital is doing just that with its recently-launched...
BrainTrust Query: Sony’s Retail Reinvention
Even as retailers and brands leverage social media and digital marketing to deepen connections with consumers, Sony Electronics is making organizational changes...
BrainTrust Query: Clicks to Bricks
E-commerce is clearly still in its infancy as a volume-driving "channel," but the establishment of digital flagships, often in lieu of physical ones, is driving...
BrainTrust Query: Misleading Indicators
Marketing spends and store openings were long seen as indicators of retailer and marketer health. Now, many of the majors claim that they can cut and convert cu...
BrainTrust Query: Dropping the Floor, Raising the Roof, and Recalibrating the Brand Continuum
Tough markets call for tough measures and everything is a race to the bottom. But as Walmart takes pains to buttress its low price floor, it is simultaneously r...
Rethinking Retail Scale
Not that long ago, retailers ran their online and offline operations in silos, competing against themselves in different channels. These days, retailers see all...
PL Buyer: Family Dollar Goes Gourmet
By using warm, vibrant colors on its private label packaging and investing in an extensive marketing campaign, Family Dollar has managed to post big private lab...
BrainTrust Query: Let Your Banner Wave?
Should retailers align their private brands with their banners or build their brands separately? Based on presentations at the Private Brand Movement conference...
BrainTrust Query: Brand as They Say, Not as They Do
Among the confident statistics peppered throughout last week's Private Brand Movement conference in Chicago was that, according to Nielsen, 70 percent of shoppe...