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While 2020 may have been the mad dash towards omnichannel pickup -- any omnichannel pickup -- retailers in 2021 are now finding ways to iterate upon their initial offerings. Ahead of the holidays, retailers like Target and Kohl's are dedicating more space, more features and more focus to online/offline pickup services.
Media company Popsugar is continuing to invest in traditional retail, and will launch a new line of home fitness gear in partnership with Target this December. Popsugar is looking to expand its retail presence in one of its strongest content categories: many of Popsugar’s most popular workouts have over 25 million YouTube views.
Hiring is a challenge for many retailers this year, prompting companies to incentivize candidates with increased pay and perks. However, the traditional retail hiring practice is also part of the problem. The Body Shop's newly-implemented "open hiring" method, which removes several application barriers, is helping the company staff its stores and warehouses.
Retail analytics firm Sensormatic Solutions found that in-store foot traffic was down 90% on Thanksgiving day and 28% on Black Friday compared to pre-pandemic 2019 levels. With brands pushing holiday shopping earlier, offering smaller discounts and failing to prevent out-of-stocks, consumers shift away from Black Friday this year.
For years, digitally-native brands relied on co-packers and outsourced logistics vendors to build out the business. However, the supply chain strains have shown that having in-house operations and logistics experts on board is a big advantage over brands reliant on outside help.
After years of helping build the plant-based food trend, Impossible Foods is partnering with another CPG brand. This month Buitoni Food Group released the first two Impossible products, which the company says is an attempt to cater to consumers' changing diets and tastes.
A recent Modern Retail and Glossy survey asked brands and retailers what they expected for the weeks to come, and many reported overall positive outlooks. Over half of the respondents said they expect their holiday revenue to be at least slightly up from 2020's sales. Recent earnings results underpin these expectations.
We've entered a new paradigm for the work lunch. While restaurant lunch sales are slowing relative to pre-pandemic, customers are instead flocking to grocery stores and other retailers for home-cooked, packaged, and frozen meals -- turning lunches into an increasingly supermarket-centric occasion. As a result, lunch-focused businesses are pivoting.
Many retailers have been dealing with supply chain breakdowns at multiple nexus points. This is leading brands and retailers to fear they won't have enough staff to deal with these issues. New Modern Retail and Glossy research highlights some of these anxieties.
As digital product drops have become the marketing strategy du jour for brands, retailers and marketplaces, Basic.Space is looking to stand out with livestreams, audio and visual integrations to make drops more of an experience.
As book publishers scramble to meet shoppers' demand this holiday season, subscription book clubs are positioning themselves as an alternative gift. Book of the Month, which has seen major growth during the past two years, is counting on consumers looking for convenient gift-giving this year.
Recent acquisitions signal a philosophical shift across the retail sector. Whereas many retailers -- including American Eagle -- used to be comfortable outsourcing their logistics operations to third-party companies, as supply chain disruptions threatens to put them on the sidelines, now they are increasingly trying to bring those operations in-house.
Black Rifle Coffee brand is the latest coffee seller to go public, following Dutch Brothers in September and Krispy Kreme in July. The public market is hotter than ever and, to stand out, these brands are carving unique niches to speak to certain identities or geographies.
Snap is taking a more hands-on approach to augmented reality advertising for brands. To help get businesses more comfortable with AR. Snap has rolled out a flurry of initiatives since the summer, including an AR asset creation studio and a platform-agnostic AR agency. The goal of these new services is to remove the barriers to adoption for businesses that are still hesitant about new ad formats.
After decades of being known for its easy-to-clean blenders, Nutribullet is quickly expanding into the rest of the kitchen. In the past year, the company has launched several new appliances, including an air fryer, coffee maker and grain cooker, with plans to add more.
Hiring is a challenge for many retailers this year, prompting companies to incentivize candidates with increased pay and perks. However, the traditional retail hiring practice is also part of the problem. The Body Shop's newly-implemented "open hiring" method, which removes several application barriers, is helping the company staff its stores and warehouses.
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