Merchandising

Merchants must be masterful provocateurs. They must entice consumers with things that are on their potential wish lists; things that they dream about; and items that must be deemed “covetable,” “lustworthy” or “swoonworthy.”

The NFL is going from the gridiron to the runway with fashion advice to help female fans wear their team colors everywhere from tailgates to posh nightclubs. The league has thousands of new products including jeans with logos on the back pockets, flip-flops and yoga mats for women this year. It's pairing up with shops such as Victoria's Secret and Destination Maternity to sell the new products this fall in 3,000 new stores.

Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, is adding thousands of items to its shelves, including inexpensive ones, and is asking dollar-store suppliers to create small, under-a-dollar packages for its stores, too. In areas with high unemployment, Wal-Mart is grouping together its less than $1 items in a clear challenge to the dollar stores.

Sears, saddled with extra space in its cavernous Sears department stores, is joining with hot fashion chain Forever 21 to expand the store-within-a-store concept. The move will give Sears rental revenue and also supply some much-needed fashion pizzazz for the retailer, which has been trying for years to make its apparel business, especially for young women, more appealing.

Borders Group Inc. President Michael Edwards says he has hit on a solution for reviving his money-losing bookstore chain: Be less like a bookstore.

Understand Web users -- Drive customers to your Website -- Show results. It57;s the name of the game! With this responsibility also comes increasing pressure to prove the effectiveness of your online strategies.

Wal-Mart has been candid about its mistakes in the way it pared back assortment in recent months. In a presentation for investors, Bill Simon, CEO of its U.S. division, shed some light on how the retailer is hoping to win back the shoppers it sent away.

Gary Friedman, Restoration Hardware's chairman and co-CEO, says the brand has destroyed the previous iteration of itself, clearing the way to express itself in a never-before-seen fashion. A statement about the relaunch is in a 56-page direct mail piece that went out in late August and is also on the company's redesigned website, which proclaims the retailer to be "reinvented, remodeled, reborn."

How can your brand infuse its products with double benefits? Double meanings? What would it take to accomplish something even more meaningful with your product development team?

Target has come up with a promising comeback plan. Two bold initiatives now under way — rolling out fresh groceries in more of its stores and, starting this fall, offering 5 percent discounts on nearly all purchases made with Target REDcards — should help a lot.