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Commentary and Discussion From the Retail Community
Home Depot’s New Plan to Get Employee’s ‘Juiced’ for Customer Service
Home Depot is taking an unusually direct approach to the challenge of getting superior customer service out of its employees. Its new “Orange Juiced” program earmarks rewards of up to…
How Hispanics Learn Unhealthy Eating in the U.S.
One could argue that Hispanics arrive in this country with an inherent orientation towards healthy foods and that, indeed, greater exposure to packaged and fast foods lead their food choices…
If Marketers Are So Smart…
“Gut feel” is out and measurement is in. So, with all these new tools and insights, things should be just peachy in the marketing department, right? Wrong. According to a…
Lord & Taylor Gets On with Its Life
As expected, Federated Department Stores announced yesterday that it will sell its Lord & Taylor chain to NRDC Equity Partners and Apollo Real Estate Advisors for $1.2 Billion in cash…
R&FF Retailer Cover Story: Whither SKU Rationalization?
Thom Blischok, president of Global Retail Solutions and Strategic Consulting for Information Resources, Inc., figures today’s supermarkets are over-SKUd by about 25-30 percent. SKU rationalization is high on priority lists…
Geeks in ‘Da House
At a recent Reuters Consumer and Retail Summit, top execs at Office Depot and Staples were asked about their strategies relative to high-tech customer service. They disagreed on staffing approach…
World Cup Fans Lose Their Trousers Over Sports Promotion
Sponsors of major sporting events take themselves very seriously indeed. Dutch fans attending their football team’s World Cup match against the Ivory Coast, wearing bright orange trousers adorned with the…
Retailers – Are They Leveraging the Strongest Brands?
A just-released Harris Interactive study ranks Reynolds Wrap as the strongest brand of over 1,000 measured. Interestingly, ad spending did not correlate to making the top ten list as Reynolds…
The Implications of Exporting a Drive-Thru Culture
By now, you’ve likely read that McDonald’s is partnering with a state-owned Chinese petroleum company, Sinopec, to open fast food restaurants at some of 30,000 gas stations in China. The…
Fortifying Foods: How much is too much?
Functional foods do not need to be medically prescribed and, therefore, consumption is uncontrolled. People who choose to include functional foods in their diets are self-diagnosing and have no way…
Kroger 2.0 Appears to Be a Success
With its financial report yesterday, Kroger capped off eleven consecutive up quarters of same-store sales growth with news of its most impressive quarterly sales growth in over five years. Total…
The Four Legs of Retail Applications
Data Synchronization was a big theme at the UConnect conference and it inspired this thought from columnist Bill Bittner: that Retail Applications, especially Consumer Package Goods Applications, are built on…
Making a Cold Brand Hot
It’s 90 degrees with high humidity and summer is at least unofficially here. So, what’s the next best thing to ice cream? How about a story about revitalizing a 60-year-old…
Nokia Pursues Retail as Media
There are parallels that can be drawn between Finland-based Nokia, the world’s leading mobile phone manufacturer, and the darling of U.S. consumer electronic chic, Apple Computer. Now, it appears…
Wal-Mart’s Profit Margin Up for Scrutiny in Economic Impact Debate
The interplay of charges and counter-charges concerning Wal-Mart’s depressing effect on local economies continues, but to date, no challenges have yet led to any significant legal restrictions to the chain’s…
Shoppers Aren’t the Same Everywhere
While it’s no surprise that some people love to shop and some people hate to shop, it may surprise you to learn that U.S. consumers do not enjoy “recreational” shopping…
An End to Outsourcing?
Perhaps customer preferences do matter after all. And perhaps the cost savings made by outsourcing call centers to Asia are not as great as the cost of losing customers unhappy…
Technology Service Providers Could Learn Something from Retailers
Retailers understand customer service. They understand the need to identify customers “wants and needs” and then to develop a service structure that satisfies them. Retailers understand that the same products…
Hispanics and Beef: Economics or Ethnics?
During the two decades leading up to 2005, Americans’ per capita beef consumption plunged nearly 15 percent, while annual chicken consumption jumped almost 68 percent. So when, the beef industry…
Learning New Tricks from the Local Car Wash
If you’ve ever heard retailers lament, “the big box guys are killing us,” you know there is room for improvement, and car washes may have a few ideas. A…
Introducing Wearable RFID the Goal of World Cup Promotion
Proponents of RFID technology are generally finding themselves in an uphill battle in the U.S. Perhaps what’s needed is the “killer ap” that will spark off the kind of demand…
