Mitchell Modell, CEO of Modell’s Sporting Goods, believed he had only 48 hours to avoid liquidation after a Wall Street Journal article came out. What lessons should other retail leaders glean from Modell’s success shoring up trade credit support?
McDonald’s, which often promotes itself as “America’s best first job,” has formed a partnership with AARP to hire more workers over the age of 50. Do you see more pros than cons for retailers and food establishments in hiring a greater percentage of older workers?
Chewy.com is going public. The pet products retailer, acquired by PetSmart in 2017 for $3.53 billion, announced it will pursue an initial public offering for a business that has significantly increased sales in recent years, but has yet to turn a profit. Will going public be a positive or negative for Chewy.com?
Unlike its rivals, Walmart will continue to offer Vudu as a free, ad-supported streaming service rather than seeking subscription income. Will original programming with shoppable content help Walmart draw audience market share from Amazon, Netflix and other streaming competitors?
Amazon.com’s push into grocery has relied on converting Prime Members into Whole Foods shoppers. Yet 70 percent of Prime members rarely or never shop at Whole Foods, according to a recent survey Are the needs of Amazon Prime members and traditional Whole Foods shoppers significantly misaligned?
A Walmart Neighborhood Market has opened in Levittown, NY to not only test artificial intelligence (AI) in physical settings but witness how such technologies impact the customer and associate experience. What do you think of AI’s potential to monitor in-store out-of-stocks, shopping carts shortages and cash register lines?
Beyond Meat is set to go public this week with a valuation over $1 billion in another sign that meat substitutes are heading mainstream. How likely is it that plant-based meat alternatives will achieve the same popularity as non-dairy milk alternatives?
Amazon.com has long maintained that its Prime membership program is “the best deal in retail.” Yesterday, the e-tail giant announced plans to make the program even better. How will Amazon’s guarantee of one-day shipping for Prime memberships affect the expectations that consumers have about deliveries of online orders?
While in-home voice tech is becoming more commonplace, BevMo!, a leading wine and liquor chain on the west coast, is piloting an AI-powered, voice-capable whiskey shopping experiences in five stores. Will chatbots eventually become a common selling tool at the store level?
CVS announced yesterday that it plans to add Smile Direct Club’s SmileShops to more than 100 of its pharmacies this year. The decision to add the SmileShops follows a successful 13-store pilot conducted by the two companies across eight states. How successful do you expect SmileShops to be for CVS?
