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On Tuesday, Chipotle announced that revenues increased 38% year over year in the second quarter of 2021 to $1.9 billion. To court employees this quarter, Chipotle raised its minimum wage, recruited via social media, invested in a mental health app for current employees and subsequently hired 5,000 new employees over the second quarter, up to 102,000 total workers at 2,850 restaurants.
In 2021, consumers are returning to accessory rental, though prioritizing more casual styles than a pre-pandemic past. Moreover, lured by the potential to reach younger consumers after a tough sales year, luxury brands are opening up to the model.
Modern convenience store chain Foxtrot plans to open 50 new stores over the course of the next two years, expanding to New York City, Austin, Boston, Miami, Los Angeles and Houston. Under the expansion, Foxtrot will retain its commitment to under thirty minutes delivery and under five minutes pickup, data-driven merchandizing and 40% local goods.
Weighted blanket brand Bearaby's hyper-localized digital advertising helped the brand increase revenue by 600% in 2020. Going forward, Bearaby will maintain the strategy, while adapting advertising narratives towards trends like travel and working around IOS 14 app privacy tracking by keeping users' purchasing path in a single creative-to-cart, new ad type.
After a year of heightened e-commerce sales, PepsiCo's focus has shifted back to in-person sales. On Tuesday, PepsiCo announced second quarter net revenues were up 21% year-over-year to $19.2 billion. A return to in-person consumption and buying at bars and restaurants and big box and convenience stores, drove sales.
On Tuesday, Marriott Bonvoy and Pinterest teamed up for the latest activation in Marriott’s broader “The Power of Travel” campaign, a multi-platform investment across streaming platforms, social platforms and even gaming platforms like Twitch. The hotel chain is adapting to a new travel landscape, moving away from its traditional business-traveler consumers and instead shifting platform spend to appeal to younger and leisure-focused travelers.
In the first quarter of 2021, online-only retailer Overstock’s revenue rose 94% year-over-year and active customers nearly doubled. In 2020, the retailers' full-year revenue rose 75%, to$ 2.5 billion. Overstock CEO Jonathan Johnson talked to Modern Retail about Overstock’s unique ability to navigate furniture supply chain issues, the company's expansion to Canada and the longevity of the patio furniture boom.
TikTok viral recipes drive billions of views, thousands of videos and even increase product sales. To capture this interest, brands have started investing in viral recipe content, creating responses to already established trends, building out new recipes in the hope to spark engagement and subsequently scaling TikTok trends to other owned platforms and in product development.
While other footwear brands struggled in 2021, Hoka One One managed to grow sales. Hoka (which ended its fiscal year in March 2021) reported a full-year revenue increase of 62% to $571 million, outpacing performance footwear peers like Nike or Adidas. Now, the brand is continuing global expansion, partnering with fashion brands and driving sales on and offline.
Walgreens' 17 million vaccinations drive a 12% revenue increase and a 9% boosts to filled prescriptions this quarter. Going forward, however, the brand will rethink its retail plan -- retail sales were relatively flat year-over-year -- and further invest in digitization and a VillageMD partnership to drive continued success.
The auto industry is famous for its pricy television commercials: during the 2020 Super Bowl LIV, for example, auto manufacturers invested $77 million in television ads, outpacing any other product category, according to data insights firm Kantar. However, brands like Honda, Hyundai and Toyota are increasingly shifting investment to digital platforms like Twitch, Pinterest and Instagram, for new campaigns.
Etsy is making a play for Brazil with its latest acquisition of the online marketplace Elo7. Latin America is a weak-spot for Etsy, and it's the latest signal, as Etsy seeks to build a "house of brands," that it is increasingly on acquisitions — rather than partnerships — for new customer acquisition.
This month marked the first time that two million passengers were screened in airports on a single day. Suitcase and travel brands are embracing the return of air travel by offering new products, expanding into new markets and doubling down on brick-and-mortar.
Despite offering competing sales, retailers are struggling to put a dent in Amazon's Prime Day momentum. Multi-category big box retailers like Walmart and Target, as well as Wayfair and Best Buy, all ran sales that overlapped with Amazon's June 21 to 22 Prime Day. Still, early data in app downloads and web traffic shows that these retailers are still seeing a modest uptick in shoppers relative to Amazon.
As L Brands prepares to spin off Victoria's Secret into its own company, its other brand, Bath & Body Works, is also starting to prepare for life as a separate company. Analysts say that Bath & Body Works' investment in off-mall storefronts, decreased promotions and pivot to home fragrances have been critical to its success -- investments that will continue as Bath & Body Works becomes its own company.
While other states have had conflicting rulings over Amazon's liability risk -- a court in Texas last month said Amazon wasn’t on the hook for a battery sold by a third party, for instance -- the growing number of legal authorities who are holding Amazon accountable is a concerning sign for the company. The U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission lawsuit is only the latest.
Read MoreAt Modern Retail’s Livestream Commerce Trends, we’ll explore how the growth of livestream and video shopping trends are transforming how retailers, brands and marketing teams are engaging with consumers in-stream and live across social and owned-and-operated websites.
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