Retail Stores

The COVID-19 pandemic drove customers away from stores, shut down businesses, and ground the global economy to a screeching halt. Now that the world has begun to return, retailers must think strategically to prevent temporary disruption from becoming a permanent end. When we talked to more than 400 retailers about how they adapted to the…

Retail brand Brooks Brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Wednesday and is searching for a buyer, CNBC reported. Brooks Brothers is one of the country's oldest retailers, having been founded in 1818, and is best known for its polos and prepster attire. Rent had become a burden for the iconic retailer, and the disruption…

In this episode of Retail Right Now, Total Retail's Kristina Stidham and Melissa Campanelli discuss an article recently published by Total Retail, “What Mark Cuban’s Secret Shopper Experiment Can Teach Us About the Future of Retail.” This article was authored by Emily Lane, product evangelist at Retail Zipline, and shares findings from a study recently commissioned…

Los Angeles-based retailer Lucky Brand filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Friday, reports AP News. The apparel retailer blames its troubles in part on the coronavirus pandemic and said it plans to close 13 stores immediately, with more closures possible during the bankruptcy process. Lucky Brand said it has a deal lined up to…

As more and more states and cities inch toward a post-COVID existence, many considerations are falling on the shoulders of retailers. So much changed for people during quarantine, and how they shop is likely at the top of the list. Retailers, both online and brick-and-mortar, have to rethink their customer experience so that people are…

Nordstrom is the latest retail tenant to find itself at odds with its landlords. The upscale department store chain has reportedly notified the property owners of its namesake and off-price Rack stores that it will pay only half of its rent costs for the rest of 2020. A letter from President of Stores Jamie Nordstrom to…

Fast. Easy. Secure. Those are the words consumers use to describe their ideal checkout experience. But in reality, how often do those expectations ring true? Truthfully, not as often as retailers may think. Despite merchants’ best efforts to provide a smooth and seamless checkout, customers have reported that the in-store experience still isn’t always up…

If you tell your fleet of 100 stores to do something, less than a quarter of them will do it correctly, and on time. This isn’t a hunch: it’s a research-backed fact. Store execution has been retail’s Achillies heel for decades. So when Mark Cuban enlisted a third-party team of secret shoppers to assess how…

Microsoft said on Friday it will permanently close all of its 83 store locations and will instead focus on its e-commerce business, where customers can visit for support, sales, training and more. The decision comes after Microsoft temporarily closed stores in March due to the spread of the coronavirus. Microsoft said the thousands of workers from these stores have…

The 85-year-old vitamin and dietary supplement company GNC has announced it's filing for bankruptcy and closing up to a quarter of its stores, CNN reported. The retailer has nearly $1 billion in debt, and is looking for a buyer. GNC has faced declining sales at its brick-and-mortar locations since before the coronavirus pandemic. However, CNN…