In this episode of Retail Right Now, Total Retail's Joe Keenan and Kristina Stidham discuss an article recently published on Total Retail, titled “The Expensive Truth of Free Returns,” written by Iñaki García, co-founder and CEO of size recommendation tool uSizy. The growing rate of product returns, particularly from online customers, is costing retailers billions. Several…
Kristina Stidham
Avenue, a women's retailer specializing in plus-size apparel, is reportedly closing all of its stores across the U.S. in the coming weeks, according to Footwear News. Employees were notified during a conference call last Friday, and store associates were instructed not to accept returns or sell gift cards. Avenue's owner Versa Capital Management has not…
In this week’s Retail Right Now, Total Retail's Kristina Stidham and Ashley Chiaradio discuss an article recently published on Total Retail titled “What Traditional Retailers Can Learn About Customer Service From Today’s DTC Brands,” written by Brad Birnbaum, CEO of Kustomer. The article focuses on how direct-to-consumer (DTC) businesses prioritize and excel at providing frictionless customer…
Walgreens announced plans to close 200 stores in the U.S. on Tuesday, reports CNBC. This comes after parent company Walgreens Boots Alliance announced plans to review its U.S footprint and close 200 U.K. stores earlier this year. The pharmacy operates roughly 10,000 locations nationwide, and closures will affect less than 3 percent of its current…
In this week’s Retail Right Now, Total Retail's Joe Keenan and Kristina Stidham discuss the release of Total Retail’s 2019 Retail Technology Report, which was produced in conjunction with Arm Treasure Data, an enterprise customer data platform. This third annual report was based on a survey of Total Retail’s audience about their current usage of…
Lab-grown diamonds have become a popular choice among millennial consumers, however, many traditional diamond producers and jewelry retailers still keep lab-grown diamonds in their back rooms. At Spence Diamonds, a 40-year-old diamond retailer, man-made stones are put front and center as the focus of its business, while also still selling earth-mined diamonds. Spence Diamonds reports…
Amazon.com announced Tuesday an expansion of Prime Wardrobe to offer members an exclusive personal shopper styling service. Personal Shopper by Prime Wardrobe will provide consumers with style inspirations and personalized recommendations selected by Amazon Fashion stylists. Users will complete a survey to provide stylists with their size, style and fit preferences, and stylists will choose…
In this week’s Retail Right Now, Total Retail's Joe Keenan and Kristina Stidham discuss the challenge brick-and-mortar retailers face in getting customers to come back to their stores to shop again. Specifically, they analyze a recent article published on myTotalRetail.com, The 4 Reasons Shoppers Don’t Come Back to Stores, which was authored by Tom Buiocchi, president…
eBay is launching its first end-to-end fulfillment service for sellers next year, the company announced Wednesday. The fulfillment program, dubbed Managed Delivery, will "provide sellers the ability to store, pack and ship their products through expert logistics partners managed by eBay" in third-party warehouses across the country, according to a company press release. Millions of products from…
In this episode of Retail Right Now, Total Retail's Joe Keenan and Kristina Stidham discuss the top trends driving experiential retail, as written in a recent article published on Total Retail by author Martin Kurpiel, senior vice president of technology solutions and IT at Valid. They focus on how experiential retail could impact businesses’ brick-and-mortar strategies going…
Amazon.com's Prime Day event came to a close last night at 11:59 p.m. PST, but the e-commerce giant isn't the only retailer sad to see it end. According to Adobe Analytics data, the second day of Prime Day saw U.S. online sales increase 72 percent for large retailers ($1 billion-plus in annual revenue) compared to an…
In this episode of Retail Right Now, Total Retail's Joe Keenan and Kristina Stidham provide a forecast for next week’s Amazon Prime Day event, which will be held over the course of two days this year, Mon., July 15 and Tues., July 16. This year's event gives Amazon’s 100 million Prime members in the U.S. access to…
Amazon.com announced yesterday that it plans to retrain one-third of its U.S. workforce in new skills to help employees advance in their careers, reports CNBC. This effort would retrain approximately 100,000 workers by 2025, and Amazon employees would volunteer to take part in the programming, most of which will be free of cost. Amazon said…
While attending the IRCE at RetailX conference in Chicago, Total Retail's Joe Keenan interviewed Ujjwal Dhoot, chief marketing and product officer at Health-E Commerce, a consumer health and wellness advocate and online retailer. Health-E Commerce is the parent company of four different e-commerce sites focused on helping consumers maximize their tax advantage dollars, including FSA Store, HSA Store, WellDeserved, and Caring…
While attending the IRCE at RetailX conference in Chicago, Total Retail's Melissa Campanelli interviewed John Kennelly, general manager of partnerships at b8ta, a retail-as-a-service company. Kennelly discusses b8ta's 17 stores across the U.S., where online and direct-to-consumer brands can showcase products, and how the brand partners with retailers to help them reinvent their stores and business models though…
