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A standing-room only, spilling-into-the-aisles crowd packed the Main Stage auditorium for a presentation by James ‘JC’ Curleigh, executive vice president and president of global brands for Levi Strauss & Co. Curleigh discussed some ways Levi’s has created the necessary conditions for success in the current retail reality.

Fostering a devoted and enthusiastic customer base doesn’t have to be so difficult. Orangetheory Fitness and FabFitFun prove it can happen by keeping things simple. Ellen Latham, co-founder and partner of Orangetheory Fitness, and David Oh, chief product officer and head of growth for FabFitFun, spoke at NRF 2018 about their companies’ rapid successes.

“The Direct-to-Consumer Uprising” session at NRF 2018 featured Henrik Werdelin, co-founder of BARK – makers of the BarkBox monthly subscription service for dogs and their people – and Chieh Huang, CEO and co-founder of Boxed Wholesale, an ecommerce provider of bulk goods. Both are digital native brands that think first about a customer whose front door for shopping is digital and their smartphone.

Few people are as tenacious as entrepreneurs. A panel of self-starters shared their stories at NRF 2018, including beauty and footwear entrepreneur Marcia Kilgore, most recently the creator of Beauty Pie and Soaper Duper; Michael Lastoria, co-founder, CEO and creative director of &pizza; Dan Levitan, co-founder and general partner of Maveron; and Manish Vora, co-founder of Museum of Ice Cream.

   
CAYAN
      
Apex Supply Chain Technologies
   

How should retailers view the industry’s future at a time of rapid change? Presenting at NRF 2018, Kate Ancketill, CEO of retail trends consultancy GDR Creative Intelligence, described the need for “platform thinking,” where retailers offer radically diverse sets of experiences and products across an unprecendented number of channels.

NRF 2018’s second day featured a series of inspiring female executives who are affecting transformational change in retail and beyond. Beth Comstock, former vice chair at GE, provided helpful insights on how the right culture and team structure can drive real innovation; Helena Foulkes, executive vice president of CVS Health and president of CVS Pharmacy, shared examples of how CVS is using lessons learned from retail to improve health care.

Like retailers of all sizes, Maddie’s Motor Sports in Western New York state recently had to make changes to its point-of-sale systems to support Europay Mastercard Visa chip cards. But when the motorcycle and powersports dealer looked at what needed to be done to upgrade its POS system to be EMV compliant, it also examined other ways to improve operations.

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Trends


The digital edition of STORES includes must-read pieces, including the articles featured here. Read the current issue and browse the archives for issues you may have missed.

STORES' annual Retail Industry Buying Guide, the retail industry's definitive buying guide, is now available! Take a look at the digital edition of this annual directory, designed to help retailers of all sizes and in all channels find the applications they need to run a successful enterprise.

   
SageNet
      
BigCommerce
   
NRF News

From working at Bullock’s to rising through the ranks at Federated Department Stores, just-retired Macy’s Inc. Executive Chairman Terry Lundgren has seen it all. On this episode of NRF’s Retail Gets Real podcast, Lundgren reminisces about his career and shares some wisdom.

Although it’s been only a month since landmark tax reform became law, the lower corporate tax rate has allowed retailers to reinvest more money into their businesses and employees. Among those leading the way are Walmart, Apple, The Home Depot and Starbucks.

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Although only 16 percent of consumers have a subscription to a service such as Birchbox, Blue Apron or Barkbox, 73 percent have started using more subscription services in the last year.

   
Convey
      
Axis Communications Inc.
   
Retail Deals

Italian fashion company Miroglio Fashion deployed the Oracle Retail Xstore Point-of-Service and Oracle Retail Customer Engagement to drive innovation and create connections between product, data and people. The Italian fashion retailer operates more than 1,100 stores, six commerce sites and 2,400 wholesale outlets in 34 countries and has 12 distinctive womenswear brands including Elena Mirò, Fiorella Rubino, Motivi and Oltre.

 

Brightcove, the leading provider of cloud services for video, announced that Retailer Rack has selected the Brightcove video platform to deliver live video to ecommerce storefronts for online wholesalers.

 

Invoice Cloud is accommodating customers who want to pay cash choice by offering a fully integrated solution with PayNearMe. Customers pay with cash, and Invoice Cloud clients process the payments through their existing Invoice Cloud payment portal. With PayNearMe, customers conveniently pay their bills with cash at retailers such as CVS Pharmacy, 7-Eleven, Family Dollar, Casey’s General Stores and ACE Cash Express stores, and the payment is reflected in the Invoice Cloud Biller Portal.

 

Disney announced an expanded collaboration with ‘Her Universe’ and the company’s founder, Ashley Eckstein, that brings new Disney, Star Wars and Marvel merchandise lines and a new book to a broader set of fans and consumers. The 360 deal between Disney Consumer Products and Interactive Media and ‘Her Universe’ expands beyond the existing licensed lines of Disney, Marvel and Star Wars apparel, accessories and home goods and opens up new categories and opportunities including a new, heroic character-inspired athleisure line for kids and tweens called ‘Our Universe.’

 

ParTech Inc., a leading global provider of point of sale and workforce efficiency solutions to the restaurant and retail industries, announced Hot Head Burritos has deployed PAR’s cloud-based Brink POS Software in all 72 locations. Hot Head Burritos serves Mexican favorites such as fresh-made burritos, bowls, tacos, nachos and quesadillas.

 

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