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First Edition

Louis Vuitton reduces the cost and complexities of store upkeep

Every day, retailers hire contractors to clean floors, wash windows and service air conditioners and appliances at thousands of individual locations around the globe. Companies spend billions annually servicing and maintaining stores to give customers the best possible experience. Yet many lag behind in facilities management, relying on an informal network of contractors selected and managed by regional offices or individual stores.

Walgreens’ technology upgrade helps merge digital and physical for associates, managers and customers

Rob Armstrong, vice president of portfolio marketing for Zebra Technologies, recognized challenges bricks-and-mortar retailers were faced with, and it wasn’t just competition and ecommerce. It was how customer expectations were changing.

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.

Tech partnership helps U.K. grocery chain Waitrose drive self-checkout

Since its inception in 1904, Waitrose has never veered from its basic principles — providing the best products and premium service to discerning customers and paying little, if any, attention to short-term fads. More than 100 years and 340 stores later, the U.K. supermarket chain still sticks to its values but has expanded the idea of high-quality service to include a scan-and-pack system.

The eyes have it

The Lash Lounge, launched in 2006, is unique in many ways: Its first salon became profitable in just three months, and its growing success helped launch a new retail segment — semi-permanent eyelash extension salons.

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.

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.

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Trends

Here comes the bride: all eyes on Instagram

Lyst’s 2019 Wedding Report takes a look at how Instagram has transformed weddings; how dresses with pockets, male engagement rings, pink gowns, personalized sneakers and diamond headbands are all having their moment; and how some trendsetting couples have had up to 39 million “engagements” through social.

Fragrance flights of fancy

There are some things that the ecommerce experience still can’t completely capture. Finding a new fragrance would definitely be on the list. The Fragrance Shop, a leading independent fragrance retailer in the United Kingdom, regularly offers free samples for those who order online, but its Sniff Bar concept expands on the idea.

Was that grocery aisle on the right or on the left?

In these days in which everything can turn political, why not grocery shopping as well? Experience management expert Qualtrics recently conducted a survey of 1,000 U.S. adults to explore grocery shopping behaviors.

NRF News

How b8ta is disrupting consumer electronics retail

B8ta’s “retail-as-a-service” model brings new and innovative products to retail faster. On this episode of NRF’s Retail Gets Real Podcast, co-founder and President Phillip Raub talks about the company’s unique model and how its retail spaces elevate the discovery experience in the physical world. Listen here and subscribe.

Preparing for an active threat situation

Like many workplaces today, retailers need a robust plan for addressing all aspects of workplace security — from drug use to violent incidents. At last week’s NRF PROTECT conference, retail and security experts shared lessons for how to keep employees and shoppers safe in the face of a variety of threats. Read more.

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

Zebra Technologies Corporation, an innovator with solutions and partners that enable businesses to gain a performance edge, has completed its acquisition of Profitect Inc., a privately held, leading provider of prescriptive analytics for the retail and consumer packaged goods industries.

Food City has selected GlobalWorx, a collaboration platform for the store-level control of fast-moving consumer goods, to increase revenue and strengthen customer satisfaction by communicating out-of-stock situations and other store service-related issues.

IT’SUGAR, one of the largest specialty candy retailers in the world, has opened its newest U.S. flagship store in Las Vegas, a 6,000-square-foot facility anchored by a giant 40-foot-tall kinetic gumball machine sculpture filled with gumballs, which serves as its entrance.

Live Q&A: Simplifying Solar-Plus-Storage Economics

Facing rising electricity costs and the emergence of new incentive programs, today’s businesses are increasingly embracing combined solar power and energy storage systems for their buildings. To help more businesses understand the economics behind solar-plus-storage, Energy Manager Today is hosting a live interactive Q&A session with two experts with decades of experience modeling distributed energy resource projects for commercial and industrial buildings.

Trax, a leading provider of computer vision and analytics solutions for the retail industry, and LenzTech, China’s leading retail AI and big data service platform, are joining forces to provide Chinese consumer packaged goods companies with greater visibility into store conditions for better in-store execution, promotion optimization and merchandising strategies.

The aftermarket parts provider Advance Auto Parts Inc. is introducing new benefits and enhanced offerings to TechNet Professional members, including insurance and affinity benefits, enhancements to the nationwide warranty, digital menu boards, a TireAmerica.com partnership and a TechNet-branded Virtual Vehicle tool.

ParTech Inc., a leading global provider of point of sale to the retail industries, has added the following companies to its list of integration partners: PingHD, NovaDine, 7shifts, Gratuity Systems, Exponent HR, and PXYData.