Retail Stores

It's become commonplace for a number of industries in the past year to have customers booking in advance to do things. Yet, as things mercifully get back to normal with widespread vaccine rollouts, the idea of booking in advance to visit the grocery store is beginning to fall out of favor given the immediate danger…

All retailers, and supermarket operators in particular, devoted most of their resources since the start of the pandemic to accommodating shoppers who wanted to avoid the store for safety reasons by upgrading their digital presence and installing new systems for store pickup and delivery. As those shoppers are returning to physical stores in droves, and…

The recently revised National Retail Federation (NRF) forecast for even higher retail growth in 2021 makes one thing very clear to me: the resurgence of the brick-and-mortar store is definitely upon us. And as such, it’s important that retailers in every category ensure their omnichannel experiences are in excellent working order. As shoppers embark on…

Hudson's Bay Co., owner of Saks Fifth Avenue, will convert parts of some department stores into co-working spaces, which will be managed by office-sharing startup WeWork, the companies said, at a time when many employees are negotiating remote work policies. Hudson's Bay will open its first five co-working offices, named SaksWorks, across the New York…

It’s been nearly a year-and-a-half since schools closed across the country. While there are still many unknowns when it comes to the pandemic, families are preparing for a return to school that resembles some sense of normalcy. As we know, the start of the school year means one of the busiest times for retailers. As…

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, grocery store employees overnight became “frontline workers,” contending with everything from empty shelves caused by supply chain disruptions to enforcing purchase limits and in-store social distancing mandates. At this current stage in the crisis, with vaccination numbers increasing and stores returning mostly to business as usual, retailers are…

In this episode of Retail Right Now, Total Retail's Joe Keenan and Kristina Stidham discuss a research report produced in conjunction with Zipline titled, “Return to Retail: Preparing Your Stores for the Rush of Pent-Up In-Store Shopping Demand.” The resource shares why it’s more crucial than ever for retailers to reinvent physical stores for the…

Apple plans to restore a mask requirement at most of its U.S. retail stores on Thursday for both customers and staff, even those who are vaccinated, in response to a resurgence in COVID cases. The company informed retail staff of the move Wednesday in a memo obtained by Bloomberg News. Apple already started requiring masks…

Merchandise facility managers are having a hard time catching a break this year, dealing with labor shortages and a dearth of shipping containers and air freight capacity. All of that has caused major inventory backlogs for brick-and-mortar retailers. These ripple effects, of course, stem from the pandemic, which temporarily shut down factories and other production…

Consumers plan to spend record amounts for both school and college supplies as families and students plan to return to in-person classrooms this fall, according to the annual survey released today by the National Retail Federation (NRF) and Prosper Insights & Analytics. Families with children in elementary through high school plan to spend an average…