Store Associates

The serious Black Friday players have been preparing for months. They've reviewed their operation and identified all the things they could do better in 2019. It’s big business, and for many retailers their holiday performance informs their whole year profits. Let’s assume you’re not one of the businesses with Black Friday meticulously planned. What can…

In the time it takes you to read this sentence, a crop of talented seasonal employees received job offers from your competitors. And that means the highly coveted pool of seasonal retail talent just got even smaller — a situation that’s only intensifying as the U.S. unemployment rate continues to hover around a near-historic low…

More often, a reliable employee who is always willing to go the extra mile, put in the extra hours, and take extra projects on starts slipping. Most often we think it’s a problem at home or outside the workplace. However, it could just be all the “extra” adding up to employee burnout, which was recently…

The "gig economy" has taken the traditional hourly workforce by storm. 2019 has been a landmark year for the gig economy, with Lyft and Uber going public, and Postmates expected to do so in the near future. And with the number of gig workers forecast to keep growing, the traditional hourly workplace faces daunting competition…

While online shopping is growing in popularity, according to a 2018 NPR survey, 56 percent of consumers stated they appreciate the in-person experience over e-commerce. That means that today's in-person consumer is looking for a more bespoke buying experience, which puts pressure on brick-and-mortar retailers to provide the optimal in-store customer experience. This shift in…

Consumers have high expectations. They expect a personalized, enjoyable shopping experience across all channels at all times. This has put a lot of pressure on retailers. Even though e-commerce continues to flex its muscles, a recent study showed that 97 percent of consumers still find a need to visit stores. But have retailers over-rotated to…

The back-to-school (BTS) shopping season is well underway, with total retail sales projected to reach a whopping $27.8 billion. However, despite claims that Amazon.com is destroying retail, more than half of U.S. consumers are planning to shop for supplies in-store instead of online this year. So, what does this mean for brick-and-mortar retailers? The BTS…

For anybody who has shopped in a brick-and-mortar store, the influence of in-store teams on the shopping experience is no secret. A great experience with a store associate can quickly catapult the brand to the top of a shopper’s favorites list, while a poor interaction or, even worse, the inability to find someone to help,…

Results from the 2018 Global Retail Absence Survey by The Workforce Institute at Kronos

There has been a significant shift in what consumers expect from their in-store experiences. Retailers are working harder than ever to deliver a seamless shopping journey for their customers to cater to this change and come out as a winner in a competitive landscape. Only those that transform their stores for innovation will continue to…