Stores Weekly

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First Edition

Editor's Note: The Top 100 Retailers and the Power Players charts have been updated to reflect the most up-to-date data. Some numbers may have changed compared to the data published in the July print edition, which was sent to press weeks earlier.

2019 Top 100 Retailers

Retailing encompasses more today than it ever has before. A year from now it will encompass even more. Whatever the future may hold, the present is still dominated, at least in terms of sales, by retailers with a bricks-and-mortar heritage: Bricks-and-mortar accounts for about 90 percent of total sales.

Decision exhaustion

Googling “little black dress” yields in excess of 5 billion results — seriously. Where does one begin? For most women, a search that yields that many results is a non-starter; they quickly close their browser and turn their attention to another task.

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.

RevZilla revs up customer service

Motorcycle gear and parts retailer RevZilla has a team of 60 customer service representatives, known as Gear Geeks, who educate customers about products and options. Seeking a tool that can assess interactions between customers and Gear Geeks, RevZilla found Stella Connect, a system from StellaService Inc. that can gather insight on every interaction between each customer and agent, whether via phone, email, chat or even in stores.

Spalding personalizes customer engagement

The one constant in sports for nearly 150 years has been Spalding, the sporting goods company behind the Spaldeen whose name has become synonymous with professional and amateur athletics. As the games and venues have changed, so has Spalding, entering a new era in customer engagement — including ecommerce — for the next generation of fans and players.

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

‘Once upon a time ...’

Moxy NYC Chelsea, one of Marriott’s millennial-focused hotels, brings a new twist to bedtime stories. Working with autonomous sensory meridian response company Whisperlodge, the hotel tested a concept that allowed guests to relax by watching celebrities interact with props.

A hidden request

It may just be one of the best-kept secrets in women’s fashion: dresses with pockets. With the need to carry multiple items daily, the lack of a functional place to tuck those necessities has long been a women’s lament. Enter dresseswithpockets.com, a commission-based site that features manufacturers that make dresses with functional pockets.

NRF News

How KiwiCo inspires the next generation of innovators

Sandra Oh Lin took her knack for creating fun STEM activities for her kids and turned it into KiwiCo, a monthly subscription box business that fuels kids’ passion for creativity. On this episode of NRF’s Retail Gets Real podcast, Oh Lin describes how she went from engineer to entrepreneur and the lessons she learned the hard way as demand quickly grew. Listen and subscribe.

3 cyber threats and 4 ways to protect against them

What keeps cybersecurity industry leaders up at night? At the annual NRF PROTECT conference, retail loss prevention experts discussed assessing risks and working together across an enterprise to manage those risks. Read more about three threats to monitor and four safeguards to enact.

Turning influencers into content creators

As H&M USA's head of marketing, Mario Moreno has spearheaded innovative social media campaigns and revenue and traffic-driving initiatives. At the NRF NXT conference in Las Vegas later this month, Moreno will present a case study on H&M's influencer ambassador program, H&M League, and explain how influencers can become diverse content creators for a company. Learn more and register before July 19.

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.

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Retail Deals

Theatro, pioneers of the world’s first voice-controlled mobile app platform for the hourly workforce, and Opterus Inc., a global provider of cost-effective, web-based store communications and task management solutions, are partnering to improve associate communication and in-store task management.

American Freight Furniture and Mattress, one of the fastest-growing omnichannel furniture retailers in the United States, has selected RELEX Solutions to power its forecasting and replenishment technology.

Sally Beauty is partnering with My Black is Beautiful, the cultural platform, and launching a collection of haircare products available exclusively in Sally Beauty stores nationwide and online.

HelpJess, the video chat retail app which connects customers face-to-face with a bricks-and-mortar store, has announced its official launch after an extensive beta roll-out.

Enjoyed by generations of Californians, Rite Aid has expanded the availability of its iconic, award-winning Thrifty Ice Cream brand with select stores in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.