Tag: omnichannel

December 3, 2021

Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen said earlier this year that no other retailer “has the customer data and the insights” that his company has. He’s once again pointing to his company’s understanding of its customers to explain its ability to continue […]

October 20, 2021

The lure of high valuation, standalone digital businesses is leading some retailers in a new strategic direction. While most sales come through stores, online is accelerating because of shopping trends begun at the onset of the pandemic. The challenges of […]

October 12, 2021

Office Depot has raised its own bar for curbside delivery with the launch of a “20 Minute Pickup Promise.” When the retailer is unable to make good on in-store and curbside pickup within 20 minutes, it will send the customer […]

October 4, 2021

COVID-19 has changed consumer behavior for everything from snacking to media viewing to shopping. The consumer’s path to purchase from retailers, in particular, has moved from a physical, in-store experience to an omnichannel one — in which consumers increasingly browse […]

September 29, 2021

Retailers of food and grocery products struggled to meet consumer demand for delivery, buy online and pickup in store (BOPIS) and other options last year as the novel coronavirus pandemic hit. Consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies at the same time […]

September 17, 2021

At the height of the COVID pandemic, retail profitability took a back seat to meeting customer demand by whatever means necessary. Retailers had to quickly expand omnichannel operations, often without concern for efficiency, to meet the simple goal of getting […]

June 28, 2021

In recent years, retailers have focused on developing an omnichannel marketing strategy — reaching customers regardless of how they interacted with the business — in person, through ads, social media, apps or mobile devices. By making it easy to connect […]

June 9, 2021

Retailers have announced some ambitious expansion plans that take advantage of pandemic-related closures. Perhaps not by accident, among the biggest are from chains that have minimal e-commerce presence. Three dollar store chains — Family Dollar, Dollar Tree and Dollar General […]

February 18, 2021

Walmart reported 69% online sales growth and an 8.6% same-store sales bump in the U.S. during Q4 2021, which ended Jan 31, 2021. Total revenue for the full fiscal 2021 was $559.2 billion, up 6.7% from fiscal 2020. The retailer […]

January 5, 2021

Preliminary holiday 2020 results have proven unsurprising so far: analysts expect modest year-over-year growth fueled by a massive increase in ecommerce activity across a longer-than-usual season. In fact, the impacts of the most unique holiday in decades are still being […]

December 29, 2020

Never before have consumers had so many options for returning unwanted holiday gifts. Some may help retailers handle what’s expected to be a record haul of returns this year. Among the expanded options being offered: Extended holiday return windows: A […]

December 28, 2020

In the first major post-holiday report, Mastercard has projected U.S. retail sales grew 3.0 percent in the expanded selling season from Oct. 11 through Dec. 24, short of 2019’s four percent gain, but ahead of a forecast for 2.4 percent […]

December 17, 2020

With pandemic-huddled households discovering online grocery shopping, Kroger has broken onto eMarketer’s top-ten U.S. e-commerce retailers list. America’s largest grocery chain landed at nine, moving ahead of Costco and bumping Macy’s off the list. “The pandemic has shifted consumer priorities,” […]

December 15, 2020

Starbucks plans to open a whopping 22,000 locations to bring its massive store count to 55,000 by 2030. At its bi-annual Investor Day, Rosalind Brewer, COO and group president-Americas, projected Starbucks’ U.S. base would expand by “nearly 800 gross stores […]

December 10, 2020

It’s no surprise that online sales have been higher than ever before during the 2020 holiday shopping season — especially on Black Friday and Cyber Monday — while in-store traffic fell by 52 percent compared to 2019. Although the demand […]

November 30, 2020

Those long contending Black Friday is no longer relevant certainly have a strong argument this year. In-store traffic on Black Friday collapsed 52.1 percent year-over-year, according to Sensormatic Solutions. A steep decline was expected as a second wave of COVID […]

November 20, 2020

Walgreens announced a complete reinvention of its customer loyalty program yesterday. What that means for its business remains to be seen, but it’s clear that the drugstore giant doesn’t plan to just sit by as Amazon.com and others vie for […]

October 27, 2020

Consumers want to go shopping in stores. Of course, that comes with caveats, according to the results of a new survey from Oracle. The research found that only 20 percent of shoppers plan to shop exclusively in stores during the […]

October 26, 2020

The core fundamentals of assuring a positive curbside and in-store pickup experience are: having a designated pickup location, easy online account creation, providing contactless order pickup and having orders ready when promised, according to a study from Ipsos. The study, […]

October 1, 2020

Walmart has introduced a new store design to help millions of customers who shop at its supercenters every year reap the full advantages of the “omni-shopping experience.” In a blog post, Janey Whiteside, the retailer’s chief customer officer, says the […]