Who’s Next?
In a major departure from the past, retailers aren't just layering fresh talent onto conventional configurations, but are purging legacy players, re-jiggering t...
BrainTrust Query: Wholesale-to-Retail Heading Hyper-local
For a growing number of wholesalers, owned retail has become the ultimate learning lab, a chance to wrest control of distribution and display destinies away fro...
BrainTrust Query: The Squeeze on Dollar Stores
Dollar stores are facing new competition from big-boxers who are determined to downsize their way in by shoving small formats into previously unexplored urban a...
BrainTrust Query: My Pre-pandemic Pathology of ‘Formatitis’
Although "small" and "urban" are the location-based terms most often used to describe the numerous emerging formats U.S. retailers are developing, they fail to ...
BrainTrust Query: Unchain My Cart! Why Shackle Shopper Marketing?
Shopper marketing should be confined to the store (after all, isn't it just another name for in-store marketing?), while consumer marketing should encompass eve...
BrainTrust Query: Private Brand Evolution
Canadian retailer Loblaw's arguably started the "prolifics" brand trend back in the '90s when it first made its President's Choice private label available to U....
Color Brightens Up Private Label Packaging
Speaking at last month's Private Brand Movement conference, Michael Ellgass, Walmart's director of grocery marketing, acknowledged that customers thought that t...
Family Dollar Brings Internal Alignment to Its Private Brand Vision
At last week's Private Brand Movement conference, Mary Rachide, Family Dollar's DVP of Private Brands, discussed the challenges of developing private brands. Wh...
McDonald’s Articulates Its Brand Promise
McDonald's is in the midst of the biggest transformation in store architecture, packaging, and messaging the company has ever undertaken in 32,000 stores, and i...
BrainTrust Query: We Have Met Retail’s Future, and it is Sears
Sears is quietly incubating and activating the business models and platforms that will transform retail's future, even as it appears to lose at the ones everyon...
Nail the Sale, Chapter One: A Shopping Trip of Reverse Proportions
With one exception, the duration-to-spend ratios for BrainTrust panelist Carol Spieckerman's excursions to Best Buy have always been disproportionately weighted...
BrainTrust Query: Localization and Limited Buys
Back in the early '80s, J.C. Penney was the only retailer of its size that maintained a decentralized buying structure. By 2000, Penney began moving toward a ce...
Braintrust Query: What’s the content opportunity for brands on Walmart.com and other store websites?
In terms of advertising and content opportunities for brands, Walmart.com's brand showcases offer "always on" presence and even allows links to corporately-bran...