Merchandising

A shopper looking for a Christmas gift for a coworker is making a very different decision from someone decorating a small apartment or searching for an easy craft to make with children. Yet retailers often ask all three shoppers to navigate product information built around the same basic fields: category, brand, price, color and specifications.…

The National Retail Federation forecasts U.S. retail sales will reach $5.6 trillion in 2026, reflecting continued growth in an increasingly competitive market. As retailers prepare for the year's busiest shopping season in Q4, every pricing decision, promotion, and merchandising strategy carries greater weight. That's why the recently completed Prime Day cycle deserves more attention than…

Consumer brands are running into the same invisible barrier. As inflation continues to push up the cost of goods sold (COGs), companies have two obvious ways to protect margins: raise prices or cut spending. However, there’s a catch. Consumers don’t respond to prices in a perfectly rational way. Once a product crosses familiar thresholds like…

Fabletics, the world’s largest digitally native activewear brand, has announced the expansion of its College Shop to include more than 200 U.S. colleges and universities, significantly increasing its presence in the collegiate apparel category. Participating schools span every size, region and level of collegiate athletics, giving fans coast to coast a new way to show…

There's a lip gloss that tingles like hot sauce. It sold out. If that line made you pause, that's the point. The Sephora x TABASCO collaboration launched earlier this year and immediately went out of stock. Its success wasn’t due to massive media buying or celebrity endorsements, but because it was unique enough to stop…

During the holiday season, retailers’ online traffic numbers skyrocket, but so does their competition. With standard site navigation, Black Friday and Cyber Week shoppers must click through product pages to find what they’re looking for. If they can’t easily find it, shoppers abandon their carts and visit other sites. However, modern artificial intelligence commerce agents…

When financial targets are sound, assortments are mapped to local demand, and inventory is flowing through the right supply chain channels, a retail season should be a success. Yet, many leaders still grapple with eroded margins and missed revenue targets. The culprit isn't usually the strategy itself — it’s the time it took to execute…

Target has created a 100-recipe cookbook featuring ingredients from its Good & Gather private label brand. Good & Gather, launched in 2019, is on pace to become a $4 billion owned brand at Target. The move is part of the Minneapolis-based retailer's strategy to become a food discovery destination and an authority in food and…

When competitive advantage shifts, it often hides in plain sight. For years, retailers and apparel brands have been told that advantage comes from being bigger, faster, cheaper, or more digital. Build a broader store network. Expand the supply chain. Improve forecasting. Add e-commerce. Layer on personalization. Use artificial intelligence. All of that still matters. But…

The most significant shift in the history of performance marketing is happening right now, and most of the industry is responding by doing more of the same. Artificial intelligence isn't just changing how ads get delivered. It's changing the nature of the buyer journey itself. Answer engines are replacing search, agentic shopping tools are beginning…