Today on Total Retail

J.C. Penney CEO Marvin Ellison is leaving the department store chain to become CEO of Lowe's, the home improvement chain reported Tuesday. Ellison came to J.C. Penney from Home Depot, so Lowe's is getting an experienced home improvement executive. Last week, J.C. Penney reported weaker-than-expected earnings. J.C. Penney's board said Tuesday that it has created an Office…

Let’s face it: omnichannel was a cool buzzword 10 years ago. With the acceleration of disruption and change, being “omnichannel” isn’t going to bridge the gap between tomorrow’s leaders and laggards. Nordstrom is a notable example of a retailer with a forward-thinking approach. I worked there in 2008, so I can attest that Nordstrom was…

Just weeks after Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica crisis, the compliance deadline for the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union (and really, all companies with international reach) cannot come at a better time for businesses and consumers alike. With the regulation coming into effect before we know it, retailers need to kick their plans…

A key trend to emerge from Total Retail's second annual Top 100 Omnichannel Retailers report was that retailers are allowing their customers to access, earn and redeem their loyalty points across the different channels in which the retailers operate (e.g., online, store, mobile, app, etc.). Of the 100 retailers analyzed for the report, nearly three-quarters…

Being an email marketer requires quite a vocabulary. MBP, IPR, filters, bounces, traps, reputation … huh? These are just a few of the many terms associated with email deliverability. It can be daunting to understand the alphabet soup of the industry, especially if you're relatively new to email marketing, much less know how to read…

In episode 146 of Total Retail Talks, Total Retail's Editor-in-Chief Melissa Campanelli interviews Heidi Dorosin, chief marketing officer at Madison Reed, a professional hair coloring and care subscription service. Listen in as Dorosin discusses Madison Reed's business model and strategy, customer acquisition tactics, and leadership advice. This episode was recorded at this year's Total Retail…

B-to-C marketers can only learn so much from their B-to-B counterparts. Though they're both marketers, the B-to-C sales cycles is extremely different and, as a result, the marketing processes are too. For example, if your target decision maker in B-to-B is an operations manager shopping for high-end software, you can manage your interactions with that…

BJ's Wholesale Club filed for an initial public offering with regulators last week to list itself on the New York Stock Exchange, marking its bid to become a public company again. The company, which was taken private in 2011 for $2.8 billion in cash by private equity firms Leonard Green & Partners and CVC Capital Partners, will list…

In this week's episode of Retail Right Now, Total Retail's Caitlin Sullivan and Joe Keenan discuss the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), including the implications for retailers’ businesses, steps they can take to ensure compliance, and more. Make sure to check out this video, as the regulation goes into effect a week from today (May…

Right now, grab your wallet. Dig past the bills, receipts and gum wrappers, and you'll likely stumble upon something you haven't seen in years: customer rewards cards. Since the ’90s, most every retailer has offered some sort of customer loyalty program. But when was the last time you actually felt, well, rewarded by one? More…