In my experience, gamification is micromanagement applied when leadership does not build a culture where each member of the team believes their job helps their customer in some tangible way ... i.e. lower costs equaling lower prices, etc.

National retailers are dragged into political culture debates as our industry is one of the few that touch practically every voter. It is the price of admission.

This is a great collaboration between two brands with strong relevance to younger consumers ... and the product is of high quality. The collaboration made good use of influencers too. Check out Trixie Mattel on YouTube.

Too many food players are focused on offering national brands and me-too private label, making price/promotion the primary differentiator. Creating new brands and product innovation is a standard play in other categories at Target. I am excited to see more of it in food (macarons at national scale). It is the assortment that draws me to walk the race-track at Target on a regular basis.

I grew up thinking Santa lived at Herald Square. Department stores are on their way out and replacing a great retail technology leader with another great technology leader isn't going to fix that. How are they going to make INC etc. relevant again? How are they going to bring new designers and new apparel ideas to relevance? How are they going to avoid continuing down this path of slow liquidation?

Much AI/ML has been pitched without being embedded in a retailer’s actual business processes. ML/AI does not replace the need to create an assortment, negotiate its cost, commit to purchase etc. ML/AI, if real, should make those existing processes better (more profitable).