Stores Weekly
First Edition
There’s a lot to be said for knowing your audience. These days, there’s even more to be said for reaching a new one. As competition continues to be fierce for consumer dollars, this year’s annual celebration of ideas worth stealing revealed a surprisingly consistent theme. Read on for inspiration — and turn an eye toward any places your own company might explore, reach and prosper.
Don’t make excuses. Don’t stop for pizza and beer and get distracted. Just do it! When you arrive in New York City this month for NRF 2019: Retail’s Big Show, be sure to check out Nike NYC, a 68,000-square-foot, six-level, cross-category destination that merges physical and digital retail. This newest flagship experience represents the best of Nike product, style and sports innovation.
   
Florence Corporation
      
Port of Los Angeles
   
Marla Beck didn’t see herself as an entrepreneur. Nor did this self-described beauty junkie with a public policy degree envision starting a beauty business. Still, Beck held fast to a family credo: If it feels terrifying, pursue it. Inspired in part by a Harvard University lecture given by Jeff Bezos during the early days of Amazon, in 1999 Beck jumped into the nascent, dial-up world of internet retail to launch her vision of an online cosmetics brand.
Zello
How Push-to-Talk Apps Grow Retail Sales
Gone are the days of searching for coworkers, taking trips to the stockroom, and removing salespeople from the sales floor. Instead, retailers like Restoration Hardware are cutting costs and leading their industry in sales with high quality, live voice messaging apps. Push-to-talk applications empower retail teams to communicate using their personal mobile devices--no hardware required.
Learn more about push-to-talk >>
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NRF is proud to provide our members with the online Retail Buying Guide to search for trusted vendors, products and services in the retail industry. Our guide is a user-friendly forum designed to bring suppliers and purchasers together. You can search by keyword, location, company name or category. Available whenever you need it, the Retail Buying Guide makes it easy to locate products and professional services geared to the retail industry. Click here to visit the online Retail Buying Guide! To advertise, please contact Sarah Allen for more information.

Trends
Lovimals offers fresh hope for those who long to take their pets with them everywhere they go. (Who doesn’t?) The company offers socks, mugs, cushion covers, totes and other lifestyle accessories emblazoned with a personalized hand-sketched drawing of any pet.
Pac-Man on Red Bull? In perhaps the gnarliest partnership since the 1980s, a limited-edition version of Red Bull Energy Drink has been offering special codes under its tabs to unlock Red Bull-themed gameplay experiences with the Pac-Man mobile app.

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.

   
Cradlepoint
      
Bell and Howell
   
NRF News
The holidays may be over but the shopping season is still in full swing. For many consumers, the weeks following the December holidays are a chance to exchange unwanted gifts and score some last deals before those New Year’s resolutions kick in. Here are three ways that get consumers to shop at the end of the season.
In 2018, NRF projects retail sales will grow at a minimum of 4.5 percent of 2017; retail sales already grew 4.8 percent year-over-year in the first half of 2018. That marks nearly a decade of steady expansion, says NRF CEO and President Matthew Shay on LinkedIn: Consumers are confident and spending big with retailers – so much so that market watchers are pointing to retail sales as a sign of the economy’s strength entering 2019. While the overall economy has supercharged gains, make no mistake: Retail’s success is the result of investment, innovation, hard work and vision.
Island Pacific
Smarter solutions for global multichannel retailers
Island Pacific has over 40 years of experience providing software solutions to over 600 global multichannel retailers. Island Pacific SmartSuite is available as a comprehensive, integrated system, or as feature-rich, stand-alone modules. From the creation of initial plans, inventory management, business intelligence, Unified commerce, mobile and fixed counter POS. All modules interact seamlessly, ensuring data integrity and a single view of information driving business growth and consistent Return on investment
Read our latest case studies
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The business of celebrity is big, beyond the silver screen, reality TV or sold-out mega venues. As one’s cultural connection to fans and consumers rises, so does their stock in launching extensions to their personal brand that trest their husiness acumen and ability to scale. NRF 2019: Retail’s Big Show concludes with impactful lessons from entrepreneurs Chip and Joanna Gaines, along with entertainment executive and entrepreneur Scooter Braun. “We are pleased to welcome Chip, Joanna and Scooter to wrap up our show,” NRF CEO and President Matthew Shay said. “This is an inspiring group of entrepreneurs who are passionate about cultural connections, social change and showing others how they can grow their businesses.”
   
Lexmark International Inc
      
Mist Systems
   
Retail Deals

Authentic Brands Group recently announced the expansion of Juicy Couture in partnership with Shinsegae International, a Korean-based lifestyle company specializing in retail development and brand building. The partnership will expand Juicy Couture’s footprint throughout South Korea with the launch of 10 shop-in-shop locations in major department stores throughout the region by 2020. 

 

Mizuno USA has launched an updated mobile app, powered by Shopgate, which includes geofencing technology to optimize the company's push notification campaign.

 

Christy Sports, one of the largest winter sports specialty retailers in the United States, has selected Jesta I.S., a global leader in integrated ERP solutions for omnichannel retailing, as its end-to-end foundational retail suite to support its expansion.

ARM Inc.
Webcast: IoT cold chain solutions
The need for secure, IoT-enabled cold chain solutions are being driven from multiple industries including regulations in pharmaceuticals and food safety, increased consumer demands on quality and visibility. In this webcast, Arm, BOSCH and Exosite explain how to develop next-generation cold chain solutions to meet compliance on demanding industry standards.
Watch Webcast
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Amazon.com says it has plans for the first Mississippi fulfillment center, which will create 850 full-time jobs with benefits starting on day one. Employees at the fulfillment center will pick, pack and ship household consumer goods.

 

A refresh to Sephora's long-standing loyalty program will take place in 2019, allowing clients to personalize their program perks to their beauty preferences and providing them with even more options than previously offered.

 

USA Technologies Inc., a premier digital payment, consumer engagement and logistics service provider for the self-service retail market, announced an expanded agreement with Pepsi-Cola of the Hudson Valley, a locally owned independent Pepsi franchise, which involves the installation of cashless payment devices on 300 additional machines and the upgrade of existing cashless payment devices on 1,000 machines that are already connected to USAT’s ePort Connect Service.