Best Buy

As consumers go about their holiday shopping this year, they might take notice of the growing number of pop-up stores available to them. Brands are increasingly turning to the temporary retail spaces as an outlet to sell holiday or seasonal merchandise that doesn't warrant being stocked in a store 12 months a year. From big-name retail brands such as Amazon.com (yes, that Amazon!) and Eddie Bauer to smaller local (i.e., mom and pop) stores, it seems as if everyone is jumping on the pop-up bandwagon this holiday season.

Amazon.com, Best Buy, eBay, Newegg, Sears … the list goes on. The e-commerce space is becoming flooded with marketplaces, but in a good way. Selling on marketplaces can be one of the quickest ways to access more online shoppers, expand your brand exposure and grow online revenue (globally and domestically).

The CEO wants a customer loyalty program refresh — now. He's pushing a modern points structure as the end-all, be-all. But you're wondering: Are points still the way to go? If your instincts tell you there's more to building customer loyalty in today's world than points and prizes, you're right. 

It's hard to believe we're less than a month away from Thanksgiving. Over the last few years, retailers have opened their stores earlier and earlier on Black Friday in order to cash in on the holiday shopping frenzy. So much so that Black Friday doorbuster sales have crept — uninvited — into our Thanksgiving dinners. Big-box retailers such as Wal-Mart and Toys"R"Us have gone on record as to how opening on Thanksgiving has increased their sales drastically. But honestly, how in the world did 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving turn into the new midnight for Black Friday sales?

As it looks to bolster its reputation for technological expertise, Best Buy has teamed up with Intel Corp. to showcase concepts such as augmented reality and 3-D printing that aren't yet in the mass market. Intel Technology Experience zones, which average about 240 square feet, are being placed in 50 Best Buy stores later this month. The first opened earlier this week in Portland, Ore., where Intel has engineering and manufacturing sites.

Christmas is still more than three months away, but the game is already on in the toy aisle with both Wal-Mart and Toys"R"Us publishing some of their holiday toy lists Wednesday. Winning the game for Toys"R"Us isn't just about picking the hit product, it's also about proving there's viable room for it to exist and win as a specialty toy retailer, as other specialty chains from Best Buy to Barnes & Noble also guard their respective foothold against rivals from Wal-Mart to Amazon.com. 

As the summer winds down, students head back to school and there's a predictable upward trend in e-commerce activity in a number of categories. Scholars and their families are flocking to university websites to select courses, register and make tuition payments, and they're heading in droves to retailers like Ikea, Best Buy and Target to buy important supplies, furniture, electronics, clothing and more for the coming academic year. The National Retail Federation's 2014 Back-to-School Survey predicts the average family with children in grades K-12 will spend $669.28 on apparel, shoes, supplies and electronics this back-to-school season, up 5 percent from 2013.

Best Buy will remodel the TV sections in most of its stores nationwide to add dedicated areas for Samsung and Sony. Best Buy said Thursday that it plans a massive expansion of its "store-within-a-store" concept, with Sony opening stores in 350 Best Buy locations and Samsung adding 500 new stores to its presence within Best Buy. Best Buy has been aggressively trying to remake the way it sells products, carving out space for individual brands in its big boxes in efforts to once again become a go-to destination for consumer electronics. 

Online marketplaces are a considerable accelerator of e-commerce adoption around the world. Marketplaces make it easy to buy online by offering a variety of products and deals, storing payment and shipping information, providing easy mobile access via apps, and allowing buyers to read and compare product reviews for multiple retailers.

Wal-Mart's brand value is waning, as competitors like Amazon.com have dulled its low-price edge. By contrast, the savvy use of big data to customize shoppers’ wants and needs has catapulted the brand equity of retailers as disparate as Whole Foods and Macy's. That's some of what Interbrand's 2014 Best Retail Brands report revealed. The annual report from the brand consultancy, released today, ranks the 50 most valuable U.S. retail brands and the leading store brands internationally.