Restaurants are finding unique advantages in launching “virtual brands” to draw in new groups of customers or to test out new menu items. Do virtual brands represent a good way for restaurants to appeal to customer bases they wouldn’t normally do business with?

With a seemingly never-ending series of hurricanes, floods, wildfires, earthquakes and other natural disasters, federal authorities can quickly become overwhelmed. Reactions to Hurricane Ida again show how large retailers often help fill the void. What should be the first, second and third priorities in how big box retailers respond to natural disasters?

Last week, Nike closed offices worldwide to let employees “enjoy additional time off to rest and recover” following a year and a half of challenges. Are higher pay and bonuses the optimal ways to recognize and de-stress hourly store and warehouse workers?

Target-owned Shipt and Walmart each introduced new programs this week that may substantially affect the U.S. delivery market.  What will the Shipt Preferred Shopper Program and Walmart GoLocal mean for these companies and their competitors in the market?

Albertsons is following the playbook of some of the most cutting-edge figures in retail and launching its own subscription service with an important Amazon Prime-style perk. Will a membership program with unlimited free delivery work for Albertsons and its existing customers?

Canadian Tire Corp. has purchased a 25 percent stake in Ashcroft Terminal Ltd., British Columbia’s largest inland port, to support the retailer’s supply chain flexibility and sustainability goals. Is forming stronger connections with ports becoming more critical to support retail supply chains?

Walmart in late July began handing out temporary pay increases to warehouse workers through January 2022 as it began preparing for a busy holiday selling season.  Do you see the shortage of warehouse workers as a temporary or long-term challenge for retailers?

Target announced that it will cover all the tuition, textbooks and fees for employees pursuing college degrees or certificates, which along with paying a minimum starting wage of $15 an hour, more than Walmart, makes the case that the smaller of the two rivals has the current edge in recruiting. Does Target have an employee recruiting and retention edge over rival retailers?

Single-use plastic has gone out of fashion in the U.S. and finding an adequate replacement is easier said than done. Some of the biggest names in the retail industry are vying to create one. Do you think any of the options presented in this competition offer a truly convenient alternative to the single use plastic bag?

Amazon.com is currently offering free two-hour deliveries of grocery orders from Whole Foods at no additional charge to Prime members. That, Bloomberg reports, is about to change. In what ways do you expect Prime members to react to Amazon’s $9.95 delivery fee for delivery orders placed with Whole Foods?

A shortage of truck drivers, which has contributed to the ongoing supply chain disruption, has been a challenge for over 15 years and is only expected to worsen.  Will ever-higher wages likely be most beneficial in solving trucker shortages or does retail have to reprioritize the career in other ways?

Walmart is really taking its “Save Money. Live Better” mantra seriously. The retailer announced this week that it plans to pay 100 percent of the tuition and textbook expenses incurred by company employees who participate in its Live Better U education program. How do companies without the resources of Walmart compete in this space?

Walmart is officially a technology vendor — for other retailers. The company announced that it is making available for sale some of the same tech that it has used in recent years to transform its own business.  Do you think there will be a big market among retailers and consumer-direct brands for access to Walmart’s technology via Adobe Commerce?

Justice, which closed all 826 of its stores last year in bankruptcy proceedings, is making a comeback on the floors of Walmart timed to an expected record back-to-school season. Do you see more retail partnerships in the years ahead or is the Walmart/Justice deal a rare case and more about emphasizing national brands?

Walmart announced that it is adding robots to its regional distributions centers that sort, store, retrieve and pack freight onto pallets. What do you think Joe Metzger means when he calls the robotics being deployed at Walmart’s regional distribution centers “a game changer” for the retailer?

With business on the rebound, DSW has not been able to attract the number of associates it needs to staff its 500+ U.S. locations. This situation is reportedly behind the chain’s decision to test self-checkout technology at some stores. Do you see current labor challenges hastening the expansion of self-checkout technologies in retail stores?

Amazon has already declared victory, claiming record-breaking sales for marketplace sellers during its Prime Day event last week. Was it, however, the biggest gainer among the major retailers that ran sales last week?  Are the 2021 Prime Day results a signal that Amazon’s history of rapid year-over-year growth is slowing down if not coming to an end?

As out-of-stocks became increasingly common in the early months of the pandemic, Walmart’s personal shoppers turned to artificial intelligence to help find the best substitutes. In the past, personal shoppers would determine the best substitute themselves, but Walmart found nearly 100 different factors can go into that decision. Are substitutions a major or minor pain point for e-grocery?

Marc Lore’s arrival in 2016 as chief of  Walmart’s e-commerce business was “game-changing” for the retailer in many ways, but did not suddenly make Walmart cool like digital natives Allbirds or Warby Parker. What does it take for any brand or retailer to be viewed as authentic by consumers?

More retail workers quit their jobs in April than in any single month since the Labor Department started tracking the industry’s job numbers going back more than 20 years. Do you see the numbers of workers currently quitting retail jobs as symptomatic of a wider industry challenge?

Amazon is expected to achieve a new sales record when its annual Prime Day event is complete. The same could be true for many of its rival retailers that have jumped onto Amazon’s sales promotion bandwagon over the past several years.  How are you expecting results to shake out when Prime Day and rivals’ events are done?

The novel coronavirus pandemic gave e-commerce adoption an unprecedented boost and brought huge sales increases to some retailers. New data suggests, however, that retailers of all sizes did not benefit equally from the e-commerce boom. What factors have created winners and losers during the months since the pandemic hit the U.S.?

Walmart is adding a new perk to its Walmart+ subscription program that promises members they’ll pay as little as $0 on select prescription medicines while receiving discounts on 85 percent of the thousands sold in the retailer’s pharmacies.  How popular do you expect the pharmacy perk to be with current Walmart+ members, and will it help drive new subscriptions?

Walmart has joined Target in announcing plans to close its doors on Thanksgiving for the second straight year, describing the day off as a way to show appreciation to associates for their efforts during the pandemic. Do you see retailers reversing the common practice of opening stores on Thanksgiving in the coming years?

Walmart will give more than 740,000 of its associates free Samsung smartphones this year to support the launch of a work app that is described as “a single source for improved employee engagement and customer care.” Does the Me@Walmart app appear to be a breakthrough for associate devices?

Gap and Walmart are teaming up. In a newly announced partnership, Walmart will sell Gap Home — a new brand of bedding, bath and other home essentials. What do you think the newly announced Gap Home deal will mean for the Gap and Walmart brands?

Karl Racine, the attorney general of Washington, D.C., has filed a lawsuit against Amazon in federal court charging the retail and technology giant with exercising monopoly power. Do you see Amazon’s “Fair Pricing Policy” as being anticompetitive?

Strong, better than expected first quarter sales and earnings results for Target and Walmart may be further proof that, for most every rule (or widely held belief), there are exceptions. What is your current assessment of what the 2021 retailing year will look like?

Walmart has been on a multiyear journey to up its fashion cred and the latest milestone is last week’s announcement that it is acquiring Zeekit, a virtual fitting room technology firm. What will the addition of virtual try-on technology mean for Walmart’s clothing business?

Walmart has launched an expanded supplier program providing diverse and minority-owned businesses with early payment on invoices. What’s the best way retailers or brands to support Black-owned or minority-owned businesses?

Walmart announced yesterday that it has acquired MeMD, a telehealth company offering nationwide virtual medical and mental healthcare services. Do you see healthcare operations becoming a more important element in the sales and profit growth of retailers in the years ahead?

CVS is expanding a pilot program offering mental health counseling and therapy services inside stores. Does it make business sense for pharmacies to offer mental health services and therapy alongside current services in those stores?

Amazon and Walmart are both planning to expand delivery services that give them access to the homes of customers.  Will Americans’ experiences during the pandemic and a return to pre-pandemic normalcy create the conditions for programs like these to be successful?

Amazon Inc., including its online marketplace of third-party sellers, will overtake Walmart to be the largest retailer in the U.S. by 2025, according to a new report. Do you think total sales made through Amazon’s stores and online platforms will surpass those of Walmart by 2025?

Walmart is removing its automated in-store pickup towers from some of its locations and turning them off in others as it focuses on fulfilling orders at the curbside. What is driving automated technology tests at retail and how can retailers better prioritize their investments?

Services and solutions have quickly become retailers’ growth engine of choice. Major retailers like Walmart, Kroger, Target and Amazon.com have branched out into health services, ad marketing, financial services and more. Which aspects of retailer-as-service will have the greatest impact on retailer profitability and viability?

Walmart says it expects that by the end of the year two-thirds of the hourly associates working in its stores will be employed by the retailer on a full-time basis with consistent week to week schedules.  Will Walmart’s emphasis on full-time employment significantly boost its recruitment and retention efforts?

McDonald’s plans to shrink its presence inside Walmart to about 150 U.S. locations from about 500 at the start of 2000 in moves accelerated by the pandemic. Why do you think McDonald’s is no longer a strong fit inside most Walmart locations?

They say the first step towards recovery is admitting you have a problem, and according to Walmart, they’ve had a big one. “We fail our customers today,” reads the first bullet in a slide from their planning deck for an internal project codenamed Project Glass. Should more retailers follow Walmart’s brutal self-assessment strategy?

Two news stories breaking in recent days have Walmart’s digital operations in the spotlight again. What do you predict will be the effect of Walmart opening its marketplace to non-U.S. sellers? What do you see as the challenges facing Walmart’s grocery delivery operations?

The mantra is to beat last year’s numbers, but the pandemic has distorted sales comparisons. Now a few retailers on fourth-quarter investor calls are encouraging analysts to compare 2021’s figures to 2019’s. What challenges do 2020’s abnormal comparisons present to retailers or brands in 2021 as they do their forward planning?

Walmart thinks that collaborating with a big name American fashion designer, whose clients include Lady Gaga and Michelle Obama among others, will help give the chain the fashion cred it’s looking for. Will Brandon Maxwell’s designs help turn Walmart into a retail clothing destination worthy of a nickname like its rival, Target?

Walmart’s interest in TikTok continues. The retailer worked with the video platform in December and the test went well enough that it has planned a return performance to host an hour-long livestream event. What is your assessment of the relationship that Walmart has developed with TikTok?

Connected devices are emerging as a new way for grocers to reduce losses due to food spoilage and energy waste and some of the biggest in the business are already putting Internet of Things tech to work to improve their operating results. What are the biggest benefits you see from grocers’ use of IoT solutions?

Walmart has announced that it plans to invest an additional $350 billion over the next 10 years to source products made, assembled or grown in the U.S. Is Walmart leading the way, mirroring or playing catch up to other retailers when it comes to supporting U.S. manufacturing?

In Canada, Walmart and Loblaw are stoking controversy by raising fees for suppliers during the pandemic to cover upgrades designed to help the chains handle the accelerated shift to digital retailing. Should suppliers be expected to cover some of the retailers’ costs for overhauling in-store and digital operations?

Of all the latest Walmart news, none gained more attention than the announcement that it would raise wages for 425,000 associates in the U.S. who stock shelves and fulfill orders from its various points of distribution. What will Walmart’s decision to raise hourly wages and end quarterly bonuses mean for the retailer and its rivals going forward?

Retailers like to tell their customers the lengths they go to to find unique products to sell. In Walmart’s case, the chain’s merchants rely on a variety of resources when they go looking for new products, including recently, social media. Has the pandemic changed how retailers source new products?

Walmart has announced an “expanded vision” for its ad business. Which components of Walmart’s advertising revamp appear to offer the highest potential for brands looking to reach consumers?

Walmart knows that its stores work. The chain is continually searching for ways to keep prices down and grow its market share. That’s where local fulfillment centers come in. Do you see Walmart’s ability to scale local fulfillment centers as a competitive game changer for the U.S. grocery market?