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First Edition
In front of a near-capacity crowd in the Qualtrics Theatre at NRF 2019: Retail's Big Show, Shannon Schuyler, chief purpose officer for PwC, introduced a series of speakers discussing workplace diversity and inclusion: Lars Petersson, president of IKEA U.S.; Carolyn Tastad, group president, North America, and executive sponsor of gender equality at Procter & Gamble; and James Fripp, chief diversity and inclusion officer with YUM! Brands.
Of the 2019 predictions First Insight President and CEO Greg Petro recently laid out in Forbes magazine, one called out for greater exploration in particular: the idea that customer centricity would go mainstream in the coming year. An afternoon session at NRF 2019: Retail's Big Show, “Product Paradigm Shift: Customer-centric Merchandising in the Age of Data and Decision Agility,” covered the issue from varied perspectives.
Macy’s has been reinventing the customer journey of late — and knows well enough to not travel it alone. “Reimagining the customer journey through the lens of experience,” a popular session at NRF 2019: Retail’s Big Show, featured Macy’s Inc. Chairman and CEO Jeff Gennette talking with Beck Besecker, co-founder and CEO of Marxent, Vibhu Norby, co-founder and CEO of b8ta, and Rachel Shechtman, founder of STORY and brand experience officer with Macy’s. Each shared how their organizations had been working with Macy’s to bring new strategies to life.
Late in the afternoon of the last day of NRF 2019: Retail’s Big Show, Bridget van Kralingen, senior vice president for global industries, clients, platforms and blockchain with IBM, moderated a discussion of the role of trust in the customer experience — its importance, and how it might be enhanced. Most retail CEOs, van Kralingen said, now believe the quality of customer experience will be more critical for the long-term sustainability of their businesses than product.
In a well-attended session on the last morning of NRF 2019: Retail’s Big Show, Jeff Beer, senior staff editor at Fast Company, interviewed Rose Marcario, president and CEO of Patagonia Works and Patagonia Inc., about her company’s approach to living by its beliefs. Or, as Beer put it, whether you can do good and do good business at the same time.
Wellness has taken shape as a major player in the retail industry. Expense is not an issue when it comes to mental or physical health: Changes in consumer preferences, the emergence of unique influencers and the power of social media have changed the rules of the market. Today, retailers play a different game.
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
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. 
NRF News
Getaway offers tiny, secluded cabin rentals in nature two hours outside of cities for guests to unplug, disconnect and recharge. Founder and CEO Jon Staff joins NRF’s Retail Gets Real podcast to discuss how his team uses customer feedback to influence the design of the cabins and how the company plans to grow.
Local businesses across the country are bracing for what amounts to a major tax hike as tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods are set to rise from 10 to 25 percent on March 2 unless the United States and China negotiate a deal or extend trade talks. For entrepreneur Sherrill Moss, additional tariffs could destroy everything she’s worked hard to build.
Retail Deals
Wanting to appeal to youth consumers, Champs Sports has teamed up with FILA and Viacom Nickelodeon Consumer Products to debut an exclusive Rugrats-themed line of footwear and apparel. Tommy, Chuckie, Angelica and the rest now decorate a new capsule collection, with design elements that offer a whimsical nod to these Nickelodeon characters.
Epson America Inc., a supplier of value-added POS solutions, has announced that Vend, a cloud-based POS and retail management software provider, has adopted Epson’s receipt printer to help merchants create more personal customer experiences, make better business decisions and reduce admin time.
Kibo, a leader in cloud commerce, is acquiring Certona, a pioneer of AI-driven experience individualization. The combination brings together Kibo’s robust cloud commerce platform, comprised of both ecommerce and order management solutions, and Certona’s best-in-class personalization platform.
Carrols Restaurant Group Inc., the largest Burger King franchisee in the United States, has plans to acquire 166 Burger King and 55 Popeyes restaurants from Cambridge Franchise Holdings LLC in 10 Southeastern and Southern states.
NEST Fragrances, a luxury lifestyle fragrance brand, is opening its first retail store in the NoLIta neighborhood of Lower Manhattan. For the first time anywhere, the new flagship store unites the brand’s entire product portfolio in one retail location.
Tide is introducing a full-service, on-demand laundry solution to give people the option to spend more time on life and less on laundry. Tide Cleaners, with 2,000 locations by the end of 2020, offers a wide range of solutions such as drop boxes in existing retail and urban locations, on-campus delivery and more.
Rite Aid Corporation, one of the nation’s leading drugstore chains, and GNC, a specialty retailer of health and wellness products, is extending their partnership through 2022. The two have had an exclusive partnership in the chain drug channel since December 1998. |
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