Merchandising

In this episode of Total Retail Talks, Editor-in-Chief Joe Keenan interviews Chris Hurt, president and CEO of Build-A-Bear Workshop, a beloved multigenerational brand focused on its mission to "add a little more heart to life," known for its stuffed animals. Hurt discusses his career start at Polo Ralph Lauren and American Eagle Outfitters, and the…

Retailers are facing myriad broad-based challenges in today’s economic environment: high labor costs, supply chain disruptions, slow growth and cost-conscious consumers, and strict regulatory compliance. On top of all of that, multinational food and beverage retailers are struggling to close the gap between what they plan for in-store and what customers actually see when they’re…

Over the past few years, the holiday shopping season — and holiday marketing, in turn — has undergone a massive shift. Cyber Five, traditionally seen as the unofficial kickoff of the holiday shopping season, has long played an important role in driving sales, with spending often concentrated in the final few weeks of the year.…

Join us for an interactive discussion on how leading retailers are using AI to transform 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…