Retail Stores

It’s crunch time for retailers. A recent UBS report predicts that 80,000 retail stores will close over the next five years as the huge upswing in online shopping due to the pandemic becomes a more permanent consumer buying pattern. UBS also expects the e-commerce share of total retail sales to grow from 18 percent in…

Best Buy is the latest retailer to announce it will keep its stores closed on Thanksgiving Day this year, CNBC reported. The company will instead offer its Black Friday deals online for the second year in a row. Best Buy joins a growing list of retailers that have started to share holiday season plans. Both Target…

Walmart has launched Me@Walmart, an app for U.S. store associates designed to simplify daily tasks as well as empower them to easily serve customers and plan for life outside of work. The app's features include scheduling, enabling associates to easily view their shifts up to two weeks in advance; a mobile clock-in feature; push-to-talk, which enables…

Was it a rough year for many individual retailers? No doubt. We saw too many organizations close their doors in the past year-plus. However, as a whole, brick-and-mortar retail is booming. Total retail sales rose by 6.9 percent in 2020 compared with 2019, per the U.S. Department of Commerce (via The Balance). The final take…

In this interactive webinar, our speakers will be addressing how retailers can prepare their stores for the forecasted surge in demand.

Foot Locker announced on Friday that it will close most of its 231 Footaction stores "to position its store fleet for the future" and "to focus growth on its iconic banners," according to a company press release. One-third of the Footaction locations will be converted into Foot Locker's other banners, such as Foot Locker and Champs…

Google announced that it will open its first-ever retail store, where it will sell Pixel phones, Fitbit wearables, Pixelbooks, Nest thermostats and speakers, and more. The store will be located in New York City's Chelsea neighborhood, specifically in the building that houses Google’s New York offices and is close to an Apple Store. The store is expected to…

The retail industry will feel the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic for months to come, but as the percentage of Americans who have received the COVID-19 vaccine increases, signs are pointing to a return to out-of-home spending. The world of traditional retail is on fire, and in order to last, brands must learn to adapt…

After a year of social distancing, quarantines, and Zoom calls, it's no wonder people are yearning for human contact and physical experiences more than ever. In fact, 25 percent of online shoppers agree that online shopping is less satisfying than visiting a brick-and-mortar store, according to Kantar’s COVID-19 Barometer. However, the brands that thrive moving…

Retailers across the U.S. have prioritized safety throughout the pandemic in order to keep their employees and customers safe and their businesses open. However, employers are hesitant to require their employees to get vaccinated given potential negative implications and pushback from those employees who do not or cannot get a vaccine. And looking further down…