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Fred Segal is mixing its e-commerce investments with a return to storefront expansion and relaunching trendy retro brands like Camp Beverly Hills for a new audience. Lotman spoke to Modern Retail about reviving what was once cool again, translating Los Angeles sensibilities to other places and the shortened brand lifecycle at a retailer like Fred Segal. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
As consumers' tastes change, big soda is attempting to adapt. The latest brand to announce an updated variation on its product is Mountain Dew, which announced the upcoming release of Hard Mtn Dew, geared at adult drinkers.
LCL shipments have more than doubled in popularity since the start of the pandemic -- a trend that points not just to the rising popularity of LCL itself, but also highlights the extent to which brands are still scrambling to manage a highly volatile and expensive international freight system.
Minibar Delivery -- a platform whose name aptly describes its services -- saw a 500% increase of new customers in March and April of last year. Now, the company is trying to keep growth apace while adding more cities and liquor store partners to its roster. CEO and co-founder Lindsey Andrews joined the Modern Retail Podcast this week and talked about Minibar's trajectory.
Big CPG brands are hoping for a big back-to-school season as classrooms return to in-person sessions. General Mills, for example, is testing out click-to-buy capabilities across its breakfast cereals and snack brands. The rollout also coincides with the return of the company's Box Tops rewards program.
In 2020, hotel occupancy hit 44% in the U.S., down from 66% in 2019. And, according to one estimate, occupancy will likely hover around 52% in 2021 -- still well below where it was pre-pandemic. As a result, branded partnerships no longer have the gravitas they once held. Now, some brands are changing the way they think about hotel partnerships.
On Friday, Walmart announced that it was giving weekly bonuses and pay raises to warehouse workers across Walmart's 190 warehouse locations. While many companies' employee efforts in May focused on enticing new employees to join new roles, big retailers are finding ways to keep current employees happy and working through what many predict will be a prolonged holiday shopping season.
Brands are embracing one of TikTok's latest trends: restocking. The restock hashtag on TikTok is filled with videos of organizing influencers moving products from their initial packaging to more aesthetically pleasing jars, shelfs and containers around their home.
The return of leisure travel and vacations means rewards programs are getting an overhaul. While many credit card and bank perks have historically focused on earning airline miles, more are diversifying their rewards to reflect the post-pandemic world.
Modern Retail rallied a squad of marketing leaders and entrepreneurs from top brands to come together for the Marketing Leaders Forum. The speakers brought their varied talents to the table to share their experiences and offer suggestions for marketers on how to ride out the storm to succeed in 2021 and beyond. Here are the highlights.
It seems as if gyms can't catch a break. Just months after reopening to the public, gyms and fitness studios now have to be faced with checking proof of vaccination in major cities like New York. Meanwhile, other cities are reinstating indoor mask-wearing, which can also hurt workout attendance.
In 2020, the coronavirus demolished the travel retail industry: airport revenues decreased 66% and exclusive product deals dried up. Now, consumers are returning to travel and brands are again investing in travel-exclusive products and flavors that both give consumers a sense of uniqueness and allow brands to tap into new consumer segments.
Designer Brands Inc., parent company of DSW, has been trying to prove itself to be a bonafide digital retailer. The retailer's CEO Roger Rawlins joined the Modern Retail Podcast this week and spoke about how he's been leading the company. He has been at Designer Brands for 15 years -- and helped bring the company online. This was a behemoth task; "I'm a stores guy by trade, even though I ran dot com," he said.
On Tuesday, PepsiCo announced that it would be selling a controlling stake across its North American juice brands, like Naked and Tropicana, to private equity firm Pai Partners for $3.3 billion. The deal is another sign that the fruit juice market is loosing steam as consumers move towards low-sugar options and different breakfast beverages.
After a series of hits from new data security laws and anti-trust regulations in both China and abroad, Alibaba highlighted some of the difficulties of becoming a global marketplace for both B-to-B and B-to-C logistics and commerce. In response, the retailer continues to split its ecommerce Taobao into separate parts – offering different apps and platforms for deals, consumer to consumer sales and grocery – and growing its cross-border logistics capacities beyond China.
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%).
Read MoreAt the Modern Retail Summit, retail executives will come together to discuss effective strategies for driving sales by building a loyal customer base both online and offline.
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