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The restaurant industry has been hit very hard by the coronavirus, which has ravaged many businesses and their longstanding dine-in models. With the help of reservation management tools from startups like Tock and Resy, chefs and owners are hoping to survive the coming winter with the lack of outdoor dining. Here's how these platforms are trying to help restaurants prepare for the upcoming cold nights.
Mail in catalog shopping may seem like a channel of the past, but one brand that still relies on its circular has found advantages in keeping it on over the years. Uncommon Goods, the online marketplace for gifts and crafts, has adjusted its print marketing this year. The company, which has seen an increase in new e-commerce customers and a huge influx of online traffic, is looking toward new digital tools to retain these new customers.
Rite Aid's rebranding effort showcases the drugstore industry's ongoing need to stay relevant. Thanks to disruptors' arrival in recent years, chains like CVS, Walgreens and Rite Aid have found even more reason to elevate their services and modernize their stores. Rite Aid's new strategy is yet another example of national pharmacies attempting to stay relevant in an increasingly digitized world.
This holiday season, the plethora of online shopping is already proving to be exhausting. To ease checkout and discourage store crowding, high end retailers -- typically rely on brick and mortar spectacles, decorations and enthusiastic store associates -- are offering "gifting experts" to ease the lift.
Online Black Friday sales are proving to be more difficult to administer than usual. With the lack of physical store openings and the fierce e-commerce competition among DTC brands and traditional retailers, brands like Deciem are looking to creative approaches to draw in shoppers this season.
As a behind-the-scenes restaurant vendor, dinnerware brand Jono Pandolfi has relied on wholesale sales for nearly a decade. However, when hospitality and fine dining all but shut down this year, the ceramics company found revenue opportunity in a new segment of customers. Since focusing on growing its DTC revenue, online sales have tripled year-over-year, with overall profits up by nearly 400%.
Over the years, Venmo has slowly attempted to eke out a space in the hospitality and retail space. But until now, the payment platform's technology hasn't been equipped to handle large merchant transactions. In the coming months, parent company PayPal will be rolling out backend products to support businesses in accepting Venmo as form of payment.
The role of the retail associate has historically been focused on store upkeep or helping customers. With the pandemic's lockdowns earlier this year, many retailers have found opportunities in asking their employees to adapt to their new hybrid online-brick and mortar strategy. These days, many workers are juggling fulfilling online orders, enforcing safety protocols and taking on virtual customer service duties.
As quick service restaurants embark on the recovery journey, long-runs of seasonal items and shifting visitor hours is becoming the key to driving traffic back to locations. After months of recorded losses due to a decrease in visitors, chains like Starbucks and Dunkin are finding a new groove by catering to this new behavior.
For years, direct to consumer brands had been pouring their marketing budgets into physical flagship stores in hopes of real-world discovery. Now that storefronts are going through a transformation, brands and curators like Naked Retail and Showfields are rethinking the role of popups and stores. Here's what the new DTC showrooms are looking like in the coronavirus world.
While delivery services have pushed further into non-food categories, some brands are choosing to go about same-day delivery on their own. With assistance from white label solutions providers, both direct to consumer brands and big retail chains are foregoing delivery apps reaching customers directly.
The start of the holiday ads run usually takes place during the long Thanksgiving weekend. However, this year's schedule is all over the place, to say the least. Even before Halloween and Election Day have rolled around, retailers like Gap are already rolling out their national end-of-year TV and digital ads. Gap’s CMO Mary Alderete spoke about the brand is navigating this new terrain.
More than ever, Amazon sellers are having to trust their guts when it comes to producing inventory and completing Amazon orders during the holiday season. From capitalizing on fourth quarter traffic, to making up for the pandemic-related fulfillment blockage, this year poses a whole new set of challenges for the e-commerce giants' merchants.
This year, many consumers aren't expecting or giving a Disney trip or a concert ticket under the tree. In fact, experience-based presents such as flight-based vacations and live shows are some of the least asked for, according to consumer data. Instead, shoppers are looking for alternatives like at home hobbies and gift cards for later use to make up for the lack of these experiences.
CPG brands in the frozen and fridge aisles are finding themselves at the crossroads of opportunities. While direct to consumer has become a popular strategy for building a food or beverage brand, some founders argue that now is a great time to invest in scaling into national brick and mortar retailers. “E-commerce is a great tool, but it can’t be the be-all and end-all strategy," said one founder.
Canteen Spirits was ready to take on the hard seltzer industry -- and then the coronavirus hit. According to co-founder and CEO Brandon Cason, the first few months of the pandemic were hard. But things began to quickly ramp up once the first coronavirus peak subsided -- and the beverage brand is in growth mode once again. Canteen makes canned vodka-based sparkling beverages. Cason joined this week's Modern Retail Podcast and described the year's journey.
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