Customer Acquisition

Peloton Eliminates Unlimited Free Membership Tier on Fitness App
April 16, 2024 at 3:27 pm

Multiple news sources report that Peloton, the fitness giant known for luxury in-home stationary bikes and related exercise classes, has quietly removed its unlimited free membership option on its app that was originally intended to capture new customers who may have been intrigued by the brand but weren't willing to spend thousands on its equipment.โ€ฆ

Decoding the Language of Luxury
March 28, 2024 at 4:11 pm

For affluent consumers who are ultra-sensitized to luxury brands and their codes of meaning, savoir-faire is the ultimate flex. In some prominent families, purchases and self-presentation trigger complex negotiations between social obligation and self-expression. A perfect example is the age-old tradition of donning your grandmotherโ€™s heavy wedding set instead of daring to decline the matriarchโ€™sโ€ฆ

Playing Games With Your Customers: Gamifying the Shopping Experience
March 27, 2024 at 3:59 pm

Acquiring new customers can cost up to 5x more than retaining existing ones. This puts more responsibility on retailers to find a sustainable way to create a positive, personalized relationship that maintains engagement and inspires repeat purchases. One way to do that? Gamify the customer experience. Put simply, gamification adds gaming elements to non-gaming scenarios.โ€ฆ

Post-Holiday Sales Are Down: What Can Retailers Do to Win the 2024 Season?
March 18, 2024 at 5:21 pm

While retailers typically put a significant emphasis on post-holiday sales, they didn't resonate with shoppers after the 2023 holiday season. During the week after Christmas, year-over-year sales were down across the board, with only computer software sales seeing an increase from 2022. Department stores, cosmetics stores and clothing stores saw some of the largest declines,โ€ฆ

Grocery Game-Changers: The Innovations Shaping How People Shop
February 26, 2024 at 10:23 am

Grocery stores have been in a state of flux in recent years, influenced broadly by the economy and supply chain issues and, at the store level, by how consumers want to shop. This year, grocery bills are expected to exceed $300 a week, which in turn will impact the choices consumers are making at theโ€ฆ

How SMBs Can Cater to Every Generation of Shoppers
February 26, 2024 at 10:03 am

For small businesses, resonating with as many potential customers as possible is a unique but critical task. With limited resources and more targeted product offerings, SMBs need the right plan and tools in place to effectively reach different demographics and drive sales year-round. Shopping journeys and preferences look different across generations, and retailers looking toโ€ฆ

The DTC Commerce Business' โ€˜Freaky Fridayโ€™ Moment
February 6, 2024 at 9:29 am

Over the past few years, venture capitalists (VCs) and pundits have declared the direct-to-consumer (DTC) commerce business model all but dead. This much is true: The party is over for hockey stick growth driven by Instagram ads or the abundance of cheap VC money for retail startups in the ZIRP era. However, as one crop ofโ€ฆ

Report: Consumers' Expectations of Retailers Remain High
February 5, 2024 at 12:43 pm

One might think that after multiple years of inflation and a scarcity mindset that consumers would have adjusted their expectations of retailers to allow for more leniency and to ensure theyโ€™re just able to get the products they want. CI&Tโ€™s 2024 Connected Retail Report told a very different story. In our fourth year collecting consumerโ€ฆ

Saks' Plan to Bring Luxury to Online Shoppers
January 18, 2024 at 7:22 pm

In a presentation at the ICR Conference in Orlando, FL last week, Marc Metrick, CEO of Saks, a digital platform for luxury fashion in North America, discussed winning over digital-native consumers and the concept of accessible luxury, among other topics. Metrick is a self-described "lifer" at Saks, having spent more than half his life atโ€ฆ