Today on Total Retail

Visa, Mastercard, and the banks that issue cards with them agreed to pay $30 billion in a lawsuit settlement that was first brought to the courts by merchants in 2005 . In reaching a settlement, Visa and Mastercard agree to lower credit interchange rates and cap those rates into 2030 in the US, according to…

Online retail and e-commerce providers are struggling to meet shopper expectations amidst ongoing inflation, higher costs and lingering supply chain woes. A new independent survey that queried nearly 2,000 global shoppers found that 88 percent of U.S. and 79 percent of U.K. shoppers said that online retailers delivered poor experiences at least once in the…

Credential stuffing attacks are a costly headache, with the Ponemon Institute finding that businesses lose an average of $6 million per year due to lost customers, increased IT costs, and other fallouts. The pervasive problem of password reuse fuels credential stuffing, and we can only expect these attacks to increase as more credentials are exposed…

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.…

Only 41 percent of retailers find the current process for selling and buying retail media efficient. This insight has prompted discussions on how to continue its development, what’s working well, and where the major pain points exist. To succeed, retailers must address five critical challenges halting progress on retail media’s potential: 1. Internal Politics and…

While at Shoptalk in Las Vegas earlier this month, Editor-in-Chief Joe Keenan spoke with Philippe Gagnon, vice president of performance marketing at Sur La Table, a nationwide specialty retailer of cookware, kitchen electrics and bakeware; and Trevor Testwuide, CEO and co-founder of Measured, a media optimization platform powered by incrementality intelligence. Gagnon discusses media measurement…

The Home Depot said yesterday it is acquiring SRS Distribution Inc. (SRS) -- a materials provider across several verticals serving professional roofers, landscapers and pool contractors -- in a deal valued at approximately $18.25 billion. It would be Home Depot's largest acquisition in its history. The home improvement retailer expects the acquisition to close this…

Fueled by digital innovation, shifting consumer preferences, and retail investment, digital wallet usage is surging, transforming both how consumers shop for goods and how retailers engage with customers. With more demand for tightly integrated experiences, more buyers are turning to digital wallets to optimize how they shop. To put digital wallet growth in perspective, unique…

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 grandmother’s heavy wedding set instead of daring to decline the matriarch’s…

At a time when the commercial real estate landscape is evolving with unprecedented speed, changes in big-box retail are an important storyline. Appreciating how and why big-box concepts have thrived in a post-pandemic environment, and understanding the logic behind decision making with regard to everything from store layouts to merchandising, is an important first step…