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The elderflower-based liqueur St-Germain has become more popular over the last little bit -- much of that is thanks to growing demand for aperitifs. But another part of that, according to Emma Fox the VP of the brand, is that St-Germain has been taking great pains to get more people to know it exists. She joined the Modern Retail Podcast this week.
Bargain clothing retailer Primark is readying a new digital strategy that has ignited rumors of a move into e-commerce, an area it has long ignored in order to keep a lid on costs. The company has said it is building a "digital platform" to "create new digital capability within the business" -- though it has given few details on what the new digital platform will look like.
While other apparel retailers are gradually recovering, Zara's parent company is quickly surpassing its pre-Covid sales figures. This week Inditex, which owns the fast fashion brand as well as Pull&Bear and Massimo Dutti, reported a 7% increase in sales compared to the same period in 2019.
The holiday season is usually the biggest sales period for the book business -- but in recent weeks, authors, publishers and booksellers have all begun warning that industry-wide shortages might leave some of this year’s most popular titles unavailable come December.
As customers get more comfortable shopping in person, retailers are grappling with balancing brick and mortar and online sales. While online sales growth slows, retailers are still looking to make investments in their e-commerce business, in order to make their online sales division more profitable and fast-growing in the years to come.
Amazon is reportedly adding a drive-thru lane to one of its under-construction Amazon Fresh locations in Florida. Yet Amazon Fresh isn’t the only grocery chain to eye drive-thru as a possible way to speed up grocery pickup orders. Hy-Vee, Tesco and Walgreens are also on the case.
On Tuesday, Dick’s opened its first outdoor retail concept store, Public Lands, in Pittsburg while, on Wednesday, Athleta extended its collaboration with REI Co-op to 135 REI stores. New collaborations, products and store footprints that speak to both the outdoors and active wear spaces, said analysts, both appeal to a comfort and health-minded consumer as well as capture incremental interest in both categories.
Historically, the only holiday messaging retailers have embraced before Labor Day are Christmas in July-themed sales. This year, however, retailers want job applicants to start thinking about their holiday plans before the summer is over.
This week on the Modern Retail Podcast, Mary Rodgers, Cuisinart's director of marketing communications, spoke about how her overall approach has evolved, as well as how customer patterns have shifted. Rodgers has been at the company for 25 years. Her role has only expanded over the years. "The real reason I'm still here is because I work on all these exciting aspects of the business," she said.
The likes of Chewy, Petco and Bark benefited from two major shifts during the pandemic: Accelerated consumer uptake of e-commerce and a pet adoption boom. Now, all three companies are betting on subscriptions to help maintain revenue growth.
Nordstrom embraces the wellness category in a new brand partnership with at-home health testing brand Viome Life Sciences. Last year, a slew of formerly-apparel-dominated retailers shifted focus to beauty and wellness, and now retailers like Nordstrom are expanding the scope of the category.
European grocers are testing out U.S. expansion. Alongside successful rollouts, like Aldi and Lidl, are the failed U.S. expansions of British discounter Tesco and Russia’s X5 Retail Group. But these European chains seem to be betting that U.S. demand for small-format, discount chains will only continue to balloon in the coming years.
Hard seltzer witnessed a hot streak in the U.S., accounting for $2.7 billion in retail sales in the 12 months to June last year. But, with the hype now tempering, a number of alcohol brands -- both established and startups -- are hoping to keep growth apace by targeting the U.K.
A recent Glossy and Modern Retail survey highlights how DTC brands have increasingly turned to back-to-school promotions this, compared to pre-pandemic times. It's indicative of an overall marketing shift -- especially for online brands known for forgoing sales cycles. Instead, in an attempt to win back sales and attract new customers, more brands are thinking about participating in seasonal campaigns like back-to-school.
Williams Sonoma's longstanding digital strategy established the foundation for much of its current success. Since launching its website in 2000, it has added a range of tools to help shoppers with everything from delivery scheduling to customer service to product visualization. Those investments began paying off in 2020 and continued to pay off this year.
Watch this on-demand webinar where experts discuss the changes to the back-to-school season and what it means for retailers now and in the future.
In 2020, Amazon Logistics delivered 4.2 billion parcel shipments, up from 1.9 billion in 2019. It now makes up, by volume, 21% of the parcel shipments in the U.S., behind the USPS (38%) and UPS (24%) but ahead of FedEx for the first time (16%).
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