Archive for the 'Retail' Category

March 11, 2010

Globalshop 2010 Day 1 Recap

Globalshop is the annual Trade Show for retailers and brand managers to find retail design, in-store marketing, and in-store technology solutions.  The show runs March 10 – 12 in Las Vegas.  It’s one of my favorite events of the year, because it’s a great opportunity to see what’s new in the in-store marketing industry, and [...]

March 8, 2010

CES 2010 Recap: through the eyes of a shopper marketer

 I’ve spent the past couple of months visiting clients and talking about key takeaways from CES this year, and I’ve promised to blog a quick recap.  So, belatedly, here it is.
CES is the largest trade show in the US, it’s hosted in Las Vegas every January and it focuses on the Consumer Electronics industry.  A [...]

March 7, 2010

Retailers service actually gets worse in response to On-line competition!?!?

On a recent visit to my local Nordstrom, I found a style I liked but they didn’t have my size in stock.  “No problem,” I thought, “Can you have the proper size transferred from another store, so I can try them on and get them marked for alternations if I choose to buy them?”
Imagine [...]

February 4, 2010

Please DO NOT have fun in our store!

I have a huge pet peeve with retailers that still ban photography in their stores.  Shopping needs to be a fun and engaging experience.  If I’m so attached to your brand that I want to take photo’s for my social network or blog, you should encourage me to do so. 

April 11, 2009

Tough times for regional retailers

It’s been a tough quarter for regional retailers based here in the Pacific Northwest. They’ve all suffered from the same soft sales that the economy has imposed on national retailers, and we had a sever winter storm that knocked out a lot of the traditional holiday shopping days this season. Now we’re starting [...]

April 8, 2009

Miller Zell study is Great, but is it True?

Miller Zell is one of the top firms in the retail marketing and design industry.  In the first half of the 90’s they were a terrific vendor of mine at Blockbuster.  Among the clever things they do is conduct their own research.  It both gives them a competitive advantage versus firms that either don’t base [...]

March 22, 2009

What’s Wrong with Apple Stores?

In a recent post about Microsoft’s new retail initiative, I suggested that that there are aspects of Apples customer experience that could be improved.  Several readers responded, asked for more specifics thoughts.
Let me start by saying that Apple has the best dollars per square foot metrics in all of retail.  They don’t need to apologize [...]

March 13, 2009

Microsoft returns to retail. Blogosphere already assumes it will fail.

Last week Microsoft announced plans to open its own retail stores to “transform the PC and Microsoft buying experience,” the company said Wednesday as it hired David Porter as corporate vice president of Retail Stores.
Although Microsoft hasn’t publicized the scope or mission of this new retail initiative.  Many reporters and bloggers responded by immediately [...]

April 29, 2008

Vacant Stores as Digital Signage

MediaPost’s Marketing Daily has an article about how some advertisers are setting up digital signage networks in the windows of out-of-business vacant retail stores.
I have no problem believing digital signage can be an effective tool in a window display (see my recent Harrods post).  But most successful windows displays are designed to draw you into [...]

April 28, 2008

Harrods goes live with innovative digital signage in window display

Adrain Cotterill who writes the excellent Daily Digital out of Home blog, sent me a heads-up this morning about a new window display being unveiled at Harrods.
For US centric readers, Harrods is based in the UK, and is one of the premiere department stores in Europe along with the likes of KaDeWe from Germany or [...]