Retail Stores

Morgan Stanley's internet and retail research teams led by Scott Devitt just published a big report on global e-commerce, which they project will be a $1 trillion market by 2016. E-Commerce and retail are engaged in a zero-sum game: one company's gain in e-commerce is another's lost retail sales. As such, the team refers to e-commerce in the context of "retail sales disruption." The analysts made five conclusions...

Best Buy's price-matching guarantee backfired last month when it lost about $65,000 in one day after Wal-Mart advertised discounts on Apple's flagship iPhone 5 — and it was all my fault. The fact that Best Buy lost money based on Wal-Mart's promotion was exposed after it and several other retailers filed complaints against Wal-Mart for false advertising tactics with about a dozen state attorneys general, according to The Wall Street Journal. 

Venezuelan authorities have dismissed reports that missing Vittorio Missoni may have been kidnapped. A spokesman for the Interior Ministry yesterday clarified that they weren't treating the case as a possible kidnapping, despite the fact that the plane the fashion executive was travelling on went missing in a region synonymous with drug smuggling, reports WWD. Angela Missoni, Vittorio's sister and the creative director of the family brand, has also released another statement in which she says the entire Missoni family have been "moved by the affection and help that we have had from the whole world."

Wal-Mart's recent price comparison advertisements may be enticing consumers, but the promotions are also angering competitors. Toys"R"Us and Best Buy, two retailers targeted in the Wal-Mart ads, are taking action by making complaints to attorneys general in several states against the discount retailer. Wal-Mart Spokesperson Steve Restivo confirmed the retailer was contacted by Michigan, Illinois, Missouri and Pennsylvania regarding its rivals’ complaints, but no legal action has been taken by any of the states or the retailers beyond letters and the conversations that were exchanged.

The last several years have focused on the omnichannel customer, and this has provoked a series of organizational, process and technology changes. Retail executive teams, led by a customer-centric CEO, are collaborating in a disciplined approach to innovation. This typically entails the definition and execution of a strategic, long-term innovation framework along the lines of IDC Retail Insights Omnichannel Retail Marketing and Commerce Maturity Model. The new rules of retail require that retailers take strategic actions toward satisfying each individual customer's needs rather than on how they position their business for greater scale and growth. 

Gap Inc. is buying women's fashion boutique Intermix Inc. for $130 million, a deal that will give the mostly casual-clothes retailer an opening to the all-important luxury market. The acquisition is the first in half a decade for Gap, which is coming off a string of rare fashion successes that boosted its sales and stock price last year. Intermix doesn't produce its own clothes and only has around 30 stores in the U.S. and Canada. But the chain has relationships with designers, including Herve Leger, Yves Saint Laurent and Rag & Bone, from which Gap could benefit.

Creating a retail empire off an electronics brand worked for Apple. Perhaps it can do the same for Polaroid. This year, Polaroid will launch at least 10 experimental retail locations that will give people the chance to take images from their digital devices and turn them into keepsakes. The first of these stores, dubbed Polaroid Fotobar, will open in February in Delray Beach, Fla.

Too weird, too pretentious, too expensive and, in the end, too out of step with what today's arbiters of style deem cool. Those have been among the many critiques of Target's multidesigner collaboration with luxury retailer Neiman Marcus, a partnership that was hyped to the hilt, and wound up as a major bust.

Polaroid will use the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) as a platform to announce its plans for a series of experiential retail stores where consumers can quickly and easily liberate their favorite images from the confines of their digital devices and turn them into museum-quality art. Polaroid Fotobar stores will be the first of their kind retail destinations designed to capitalize on the meteoric rise in people taking pictures. These cool, hip, experiential stores will make the process of turning peoples' best pictures into cherished pieces of art both rewarding and fun.

What did the 2012 holidays teach us about the current state of shoppers-and, of course, the places where they shop? Here are 10 notable trends.