Lauren Freedman

Lauren Freedman
Average Merchandising is Not Acceptable in Amazon Era

Competing in a world dominated by digital powerhouses like Amazon.com makes it virtually impossible to excel without prioritizing effective merchandising — supported by the right tools, processes and people. Our focus at the e-tailing group has always been on merchandising, as we see it to be a key differentiator in digital selling. Therefore, we were…

Top Performing Brands in the Eyes of a Mystery Shopper

To really understand the customer journey, you’ve got to take it yourself. That’s why we stepped in consumers’ shoes for our Global Mystery Shopping Study. We walked through eight different shopping scenarios with 50 global brands to learn where they're succeeding and where they’re falling short. As mystery shoppers, our team simulated purchasing products, researched…

Here’s What Millennials Really Want From Brands

Millennials, Generation Y, Echo Boomers, the Demand Generation — call them what you want, but this key group of over 75 million U.S. consumers is undoubtedly changing today’s shopping scene. Brands have been forced to evolve their omnichannel strategies as well as tailor their offerings and merchandising to millennials, since this demographic now has over $200 million in annual…

20/20 Vision: Looking Back at the Evolution of Digital Shopping Innovation

The past 20 years of e-commerce and digital have been a long journey for retailers. We’ve gone from slow, primitive websites with poor user experiences to the fast, intuitive, omnichannel offerings we know today. However, while retailers sometimes struggled to keep up with rapid advancements in technology and rising consumer expectations, clear standards have emerged…

Which Retailers Are Winning at Customer Service?

Customer service may mean many things to different retailers, but one thing is certain — a positive customer service experience is crucial to a retailer’s success. Customer service has always been a cornerstone of strong retailer-customer relationships, and this has never been more true than in today’s omnichannel retail climate. With a vast array of…