As Jeff Bezos expands the Amazon.com empire, its dominance is impacting consumer behavior as well as legacy business models across more business sectors than we could have originally imagined. It’s been referred to as the Amazon Effect. One notable ripple of the Amazon Effect has been felt by traditional retailers. The profound impact has been…
Sears is opening stores again. The department store chain that has closed hundreds of Sears and Kmart locations over the past few years announced this week that it will open three “Sears Home & Life” stores in May. The stores will be located in Anchorage, AK; Lafayette, LA; and Overland Park, KS. The new stores will offer…
Target Corp will raise its U.S. minimum wage to $13 an hour in June, from $12 currently, increasing its payroll costs and putting new pressure on rival Walmart to attract retail workers in a tight labor market. Minneapolis-based Target employs over 300,000 workers and runs 1,845 stores in the United States. The company is investing…
The ailing Italian luxury fashion house Roberto Cavalli has shuttered its North American operations, hours after the brand said it was seeking a deal with creditors to stave off a bankruptcy filing and less than a week after the departure of its creative director, Paul Surridge. On Friday, the brand confirmed that it intended to…
Retail has always been a tough game, and increasing demands on brick-and-mortar to differentiate from e-commerce has only made it harder. With more options than ever before, consumers have their pick of the litter, online and offline. Bad experience at one store? Plenty more to try instead. But what drives away customers? Qualtrics recently conducted…
Bed Bath & Beyond laid off about 150 of its 65,000 employees last week, CNBC reported. Anonymous sources familiar with the matter told CNBC that a little less than 50 workers, largely in the field-support team, which helps staff stores at namesake Bed Bath & Beyond stores, lost their jobs. In addition, fewer than 100 department and…
Discount retailer Five Below plans to open between 145 and 150 stores this year as off-price concepts continue to do well in the changing retail landscape. The company will end 2019 with nearly 900 stores nationwide after the addition of the stores, according to a company press release. Net sales at Five Below increased 23.5 percent…
Wayfair, the Boston-based seller of home goods, said this week that it will open its first full-service physical retail store in early fall. The store, which will be located in the Natick Mall in Natick, Mass., is designed to extend the way Wayfair customers shop. Customer service and home design experts, for example, will be in-store to…
Now that the dust has settled from the storm that is SXSW, I've had the chance to reflect on some of the key themes coming out of this year’s event. The retail industry in particular made waves with a higher profile presence than usual, with companies like Walmart, Patagonia, Away, lululemon, and Amazon.com just several…
This past year, Lord & Taylor announced it would close its flagship store in New York City, as well as 10 of its other retail locations through 2019. While many long-established retailers have struggled to keep up in an increasingly omnichannel retail environment, the announcement still came as a surprise for many people as the…
