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First Edition

Crave Retail helps companies understand what’s happening in the middle of the store

Bricks-and-mortar retailers have an interesting problem: the fitting room. Anyone who has ever taken an armload of items into a changing room — only to find themselves half-dressed, without the right size and without a sales associate around to help — can probably relate.

Taking root

The direct-to-consumer retail landscape is blossoming in today’s ecommerce era. Take Detroit-based Bloomscape, an online shop that delivers live plants directly from the greenhouse to its customers’ front doors. The visionary green thumb behind the company is Justin Mast, who comes from a long line of growers and first branched out with the idea to sell house plants directly to the public in 2006.

Room to grow

The Container Store, which has long featured a specialized custom closet department in both its bricks-and-mortar and online operations, recently launched its first-ever “new direction” stand-alone Custom Closets store in Los Angeles.

Subscription retailer MeUndies adds value through human resources platform

MeUndies is a subscription and membership-based company with a successful foray into the $130 billion basics market. The company respects its team’s values, which include balance and relationships and a savvy for championing differences. What was lacking was a human resources platform to match its unique needs as a small business.

Cut TCO by 15% on barcode devices

Retailers have relied on rugged handheld devices for over 30 years to boost efficiency and productivity. All along, devices have suffered from failures due to charging contacts that get dirty, corrode, or break. Wireless charging prevents device failure, drastically reducing TCO. An enterprise can easily reduce TCO by 15% or more deploying wireless charging devices.

Download the White Paper

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

Open-and-shut case

When Costco opened its first location in China in late August, it had to shut its doors a few hours later: The company was swamped with visitors, some waiting three hours to get into the parking lot.

Move over, golden arches

For a generation that grew up with a hamburger-pushing clown or cookie-baking elves, it’s clear that product mascots are changing. A new survey of 1,630 U.S. consumers by Crestline Custom Promotional Products found that Ronald McDonald had dropped to fifth in terms of most-recognized product mascots.

Socks to go and cashless pizza

Two stories show the lengths retailers will go to remove friction from the buying process. First, there’s The Sock Spot, which has created several automated retail units deployed at the Westfield San Francisco Centre shopping mall. Meanwhile in Australia, Domino’s is testing cashless stores at five locations.

NRF News

Behind the scenes of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade started back in 1924, but it's still bringing Americans together for a shared cultural experience that delights both young and old. Susan Tercero, executive producer of the parade, joins this episode of NRF’s Retail Gets Real podcast to share how it all comes together and what it means to Macy's.

Starbucks CEO to speak at NRF 2020 Vision: Retail's Big Show

Starbucks President and CEO Kevin Johnson will be a keynote speaker at NRF 2020 Vision: Retail’s Big Show in New York City in January. Johnson will discuss nurturing humanity in a modern retail environment and the role of shared experiences and community in the modern-day retail environment.

More than 165M people expected to shop over 5-day Thanksgiving weekend

Retailers are preparing for one of the busiest shopping weekends of the year with an estimated 165.3 million people likely to shop Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday, according to the annual survey released recently by NRF and Prosper Insights & Analytics. Younger consumers are significantly more likely to shop over the holiday weekend.

Relationships included with every shopper interaction.

Your biggest successes are still ahead. But to get there, you’ll need to include something extra in every transaction: an awesome relationship. That’s where Salesforce has your back. It’s the world’s #1 engagement platform, helping you connect to your shoppers in a whole new way.

Learn More

Retail Deals

Outdoor and fashion retailer and manufacturer Cape Union Mart International (Pty) Ltd has selected Oracle to modernize its retail operations and fuel growth across all sales channels with better inventory visibility and more sophisticated merchandise assortments that keep shoppers coming back for more.

The Kudelski Group, the world leader in digital security, and CoreKinect, a leader in scalable hardware design and manufacturing, have launched a joint solution enabling grocers and other food retailers to securely track food using an end-to-end cold chain tracking solution called FreshTrack.

Coty Inc. and Kylie Jenner have entered into a long-term strategic partnership in order to jointly build and further develop Kylie’s existing beauty business into a global powerhouse brand.

AskNicely, the all-in-one platform for creating amazing customer experiences, has launched Performance & Recognition, a mobile customer experience coaching app designed specifically for front-line employees.

Consumer Incentives 2019: The Digital Transformation of Rewards, Rebates & Loyalty

Discover why shoppers prefer digital incentives, what they expect from the rewards experience, and how you can take your loyalty program to the next level.

Download the Free Report

Inter Parfums Inc. has entered into an exclusive, 10-year worldwide license agreement with German luxury fashion house MCM for the creation, development and distribution of fragrances under the MCM brand.

Animal Supply Company, the national leader in pet food and supplies distribution, is partnering with major ecommerce platforms, including BigCommerce and Shopify, to help independent pet retailers expand beyond traditional walls and enter the online space.

Leading fashion retailer Nordstrom and Rent the Runway Inc., the company that has pioneered apparel rental as an indispensable utility and powers women to feel their best every day, have announced a multi-pronged partnership across stores, inventory innovation and product development.

BigCommerce, the leading open SaaS ecommerce platform for fast-growing and established brands, has launched its new GraphQL Storefront API, purpose-built for creating faster, personalized customer shopping experiences that differentiate brands from competitors.