Product Sourcing

In recent months, e-commerce, particularly the third-party marketplace, has become the driving force for retailers as footfall in-store rapidly declines — with digital sales expected to rise a staggering 18 percent in 2020. Todays "virtual malls" have all delivered soaring revenue growth during the third quarter, fueled by the transformation of consumer shopping habits. E-commerce giants…

On-demand manufacturing, also called cloud manufacturing, emerged over the past decade and is beginning to revolutionize the supply chain industry. Driven by the explosive growth of e-commerce and shifting consumer preferences, the global cloud manufacturing market is expected to reach about $112 billion by 2024, growing at an astounding 19.8 percent annually, according to MarketWatch.…

In episode 281 of Total Retail Talks, Editor-in-Chief Joe Keenan interviews Stacey Helbig, vice president of solution strategy, and Brian Coupland, senior vice president of merchandising at Staples. Listen in as Helbig and Coupland discuss the Staples Connect Breakthrough Project, the inspiration behind the initiative, and the criteria being used to evaluate new product ideas during the…

Plenty of companies spent the first months of the pandemic scrambling to pivot operations, make working from home effortless for their people, and maintaining strong customer relationships. My company certainly did. However, we also focused our energies on a rather challenging project: bringing a new product to market. During normal times, taking a product from…

For the past few years, the on-demand nature of the modern customer has been pushing retailers into a new era of data-driven, iterative decision making. As with nearly every other facet of digital transformation, COVID-19 has accelerated the need for decision making at every level of retail — product development, factory, key account coordination, inventory…

With stay-at-home restrictions easing across the country, what does the future landscape of retail look like? What do consumers face when ordering products online? We do know with the global pandemic that e-commerce has skyrocketed. Unfortunately, with the shift to e-commerce, we've also seen massive amounts of counterfeit products as well as products that were…

We’re already getting super hyped for the holiday season. From delicate snowfalls to generous gift-giving to spending time with family and loved ones, it really is the most wonderful time of the year. If you work in retail, however, the holiday season can mean something very different. Many boutique owners find themselves busier than ever…

Managing spend is a tall order for retailers today. As the workforce grows more geographically distributed, and as employees increasingly drive business spending from the bottom up, it's harder to track cash flow across multiple touchpoints — from sourcing and manufacturing to advertising and employee supplies. COVID-19 has intensified these issues, forcing retailers to make…

The retail landscape of America is undergoing an undeniable transformation. COVID-19 has catapulted e-commerce center stage, with online marketplaces taking over for brick-and-mortar stores amid safety fears and lockdown restrictions. This has proven just how crucial it is to cultivate a robust digital presence, particularly as retailers are facing economic devastation, with 2.1 million job…

On March 2, 2020, a bipartisan group of representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives introduced the Stopping Harmful Offers on Platforms by Screening Against Fakes in E-Commerce Act (the Shop Safe Act 2020) to help stem the growing concern over counterfeit products being offered for sale on online third-party marketplace e-commerce platforms. E-commerce has…