Wednesday, December 19, 2018

These Retail Trends May Not Make It Through 2019

This author believes fast fashion and grocery delivery are the biggest retail trends that will come to an end next year.  I would love to get your opinion.  

GlobeStreet.com.  By Kelsi Maree Borland | December 07, 2018

The retail industry is rapidly evolving, and trends that were once mainstays have been dying out. This has manifested as major store closures in the last couple of years, and unfortunately, we aren’t out of the dark yet. In 2019, expect fast fashion brands like H&M and Forever 21 to start to show signs of trouble, according to Sean Slater of Retail Design Collaborative.

Fast fashion isn’t the only retail trend that Slater expects to end next year. Grocery delivery efforts, he says, are also on their way out—despite the recent surge in attention. “Curbside pick-up has been a start and stop process over the last few years. We have seen a ton of investment from Walmart, Kroger and Target into this idea, but I think that we are going to have another downturn in the importance of that,” he explains. “This year, there have been a huge capital investment into curbside pick-up, but I think that those investments will go on pause. It is going to be much more about the in-store satisfaction and much less about how fast you can pick up a bag of groceries.”

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Amazon Fresh Future in Doubt?

Some Amazon Fresh customers are slamming the grocery-delivery service over disappearing and ruined orders, and it raises questions about its future.

BusinessInsider.com, Dennis Green.


Some customers are saying that Amazon Fresh is growing rotten.

The online grocery-delivery service has undergone many changes in the past year, and it's racking up poor customer reviews as its future — and its place within the Amazon Prime ecosystem — is increasingly being questioned.

Business Insider spoke with more than a dozen Amazon Fresh customers who said they had experienced issues with the service in places like Los Angeles, New York, and Washington, DC. These customers complained of poor-quality and even spoiled produce, orders being packed incorrectly or illogically, canceled or late deliveries, and regularly missing items.

To read more of this article, click here...

Tuesday, December 4, 2018

Dramatic 10% Increase in Top Retailer Foot Traffic

Placer.ai (foot traffic analytics platform) just released its initial ‘Retail Index’ measuring foot traffic at over 24,000 major retail brands and shopping centers across the United States, comparing the Black Friday weekend in 2018 vs Black Friday weekend visits for 2017.

Key takeaways for the Black Friday weekend 2018 shopping period include:

  • Overall foot traffic increased 10.1% year over year at the top 30 retailers, as compared to 2017. 
  • The top 3 retailers in the Retail Index for the Thanksgiving weekend 2018 were Hobby Lobby, Ulta Beauty, and T.J. Maxx, each delivering a 26% increase in foot traffic. 
  • As a category, mass merchants like Walmart and Target showed the largest lift in traffic, at 12% year over year increase compared to 2017.
To read more key takeaways, click here...