Would Iceland’s equal pay law work in the U.S.?
The New Year ushered in a new wage policy in Iceland, where it is now illegal for companies to pay men more than women for the same job. Would an equal pay law work in the U.S.?
It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s an electric, driverless concept vehicle!
At 2018 CES, Toyota Motor Corp introduced the e-Palette, an electric, driverless, multi-purpose vehicle “designed to meet the demands of future multi-mode transportation and business applications.” What potential retail applications do you see for vehicles like Toyota’s e-Palette concept?
Amazon Go goes live
After nearly 14 months of testing its Amazon Go cash-free and cashier-less convenience concept with only its own employees, Amazon.com is ready to open the store to consumers in Seattle. Will Amazon Go be a hit with shoppers?
Does Whole Foods have a backroom problem?
According to a report from Business Insider, the rollout of an order-to-shelf inventory system is being blamed for frequent stock outs in at least some Whole Foods’ locations. Are you a fan of order-to-shelf inventory management systems for grocers?
Diversity isn’t easy
At a panel discussing diversity at last week’s NRF Show, J.C. Penney’s CEO Marvin Ellison recalled a “key learning” he gained early in his career when he reached the corporate office of his former employer, Target, in Minneapolis in the early nineties. What advice do you have for expanding diversity in retail, whether at the c-level or selling floor?
Is personalization the new loyalty?
After all the hand-wringing over the gap between customer expectations of personalized experience versus the capacity to deliver, it’s both heartening and vexing to hear Neiman Marcus’ VP of customer insight and analytics, Jeff Rosenfeld, call personalization “the new loyalty.” Will advanced personalization replace or complement traditional “spend-and-earn” loyalty programs at retail?
Can Wakefern crowdsource away its out-of-stocks?
In a session at the 2018 NRF, supermarket cooperative Wakefern Food Industries revealed a creative solution that blends technology with shoppers’ natural behavior to address the problem of out-of-stocks. Will crowdsourcing the task of finding out-of-stocks via shopping carts prove to be an effective method of minimizing out-of-stocks?
Incentives drive web survey responses
Getting survey responses can be a challenging task, facing headwinds such as dissatisfaction with market research and survey fatigue. Yet new Gallup data on the use of incentives offers some hope. Are you a fan of using incentives to improve response rates for web-based and mobile surveys, or do you believe it skews feedback quality?
Walmart CEO: ‘Retail is about change’
In a keynote presentation at NRF’s Retail’s Big Show, Doug McMillon, Walmart’s CEO, highlighted the importance of fostering a culture that supports change in an increasingly tech-driven marketplace. What advice would you have for retailers looking to create a culture of change?
Forget Kroger. Will Boxed open its own stores?
Rumors have been flying about a possible acquisition of Boxed by Kroger. But in a session at NRF, Chieh Huang, CEO of Boxed, alluded to another possible development for the pure-play e-tail wholesale club. There may be standalone brick-and-mortar stores in Boxed’s future. Would Boxed succeed in an attempt to expand into standalone brick-and-mortar stores?