Key Insights Neiman Marcus is leaning into the importance of customer relationships in luxury retail. The retailer hasn’t been dorman during Covid-19, rolling out new ways to drive sales and keep associates employed. Neiman Marcus is preparing to emerge from bankruptcy by the end of September after receiving court approval for its reorganization plan last…
Walmart is the latest retailer to begin testing drone deliveries for customer orders to build out its on-demand fulfillment capabilities. The retail giant announced a partnership today with Tel Aviv-based drone delivery company Flytrex to deliver “select grocery and household essential items” in Fayetteville, N.C. (And, according to Flytrex, the startup is also delivering “multiple…
A slew of agencies have inked a partnership with Profitero, a performance analytics firm that helps brands, particularly ones in the CPG space, optimize ad spend on Amazon, Walmart and other ecommerce sites. Profitero’s clients include L’Oreal, General Mills and Revlon. By directly partnering with the agencies that service these companies and their various brands,…
Key Insights: Walmart+ appears to be a defensive move to retain shoppers, not lure Amazon customers. Analysts say Walmart+ perks such as free shipping with an order minimum and stingy gas discounts fall flat. Walmart finally announced a Sept. 15 launch date for its Walmart+ membership program, along with benefits like free shipping, a checkout-free…
Walmart’s highly anticipated Walmart+ membership program officially has a launch date: Sept. 15. Walmart+ will be $98 a year, or $12.95 a month, and comes with a complimentary 15-day trial. That means it’s slightly more affordable than Amazon’s 15-year-old Prime program, which is $119 annually, or $12.99 monthly. Walmart+ perks include free delivery of more…
Key insight: Fashion and interior design are linked by storytelling and self-expression. With large swaths of the U.S. still hunkered down at home, Lowe’s is teaming with leading fashion designers Jason Wu, Christian Siriano and Rebecca Minkoff to bring New York Fashion Week from the catwalks into the home. The collaboration is among chief brand…
Pinterest is testing the addition of information to Product Pins, and it detailed updates to its Shopping Spotlights curated recommendations under its search tab. New “Popular” and “Best seller” labels are being tested on Product Pins so that Pinners can see which products are trending based on what other Pinners have been buying. Updated sale…
Facebook Tuesday introduced Facebook Shop, a new place within its flagship mobile application for users to find products from businesses they already like, discover new businesses and make purchases, all in one place and without leaving the app. The feature’s Instagram Shop counterpart began rolling out on that platform in the U.S. in July, with…
Key Insight: Back-to-school advertisers are relying on TV more heavily this year with ad share up to 33%. The back-to-school season is typically predictable in terms of both timing and product assortment. Not so in 2020. According to Brendan Witcher, vp and principal analyst at research firm Forrester, this environment brought on by the pandemic…
Artist and designer Joshua Vides will star in the first-ever shoppable show on TikTok, in collaboration with mobile-first video shopping platform Ntwrk. And the partnership is not shying away from addressing the company’s latest controversy with the White House. Ntwrk is what would happen if “old-school QVC, Instagram Live and Complex Networks had a baby,”…
Beauty brand Tula, whose business is booming as consumers gravitate toward skin care during the pandemic, booked another successful product launch this week with the introduction of the So Pumpkin sugar scrub, an exclusive collaboration with Olympic gold medal-winning gymnast Shawn Johnson East. There is already a 16,000-person-long waiting list for the skin treatment, which…
The meteoric rise of ecommerce has been one of the biggest stories of the pandemic era. Brands with strong ecommerce platforms prior to Covid-19 benefited enormously from that foresight, while those that didn’t either fell behind or had to make a quick pivot. Still others had to develop an ecommerce strategy for industries that either…
After emerging from a nearly yearlong bankruptcy process in January, discount footwear retailer Payless is back. This week, the company announced the relaunch of its brand in the North American market, unveiling its new (and open for business) ecommerce platform and brick-and-mortar concept stores. The footwear purveyor aims to unveil its first location in Miami…
Apparel is among the hardest hit retail sectors during the pandemic, but that hasn’t hindered direct-to-consumer athleisure brand Vuori. CEO Joe Kudla wouldn’t provide specific numbers, but said the brand is on track to grow 180% year-over-year. The business was already growing prior to the pandemic, attracting a $45 million investment from Norwest Venture Partners,…
Covid-19 has forced millions of Americans to spend a majority of their day-to-day routines at home and, naturally, online shopping has been booming since lockdowns began in the spring. In turn, email marketing performance has also exploded, and the numbers are staggering. Klaviyo, an email marketing and SMS marketing platform that serves about 43,000 companies…
Dominance in overall search does not equate to dominance in product search. That’s a hard truth Google may have learned too late. Now, however, it’s trying to win back brands and customers by establishing itself as an Amazon alternative in ecommerce. And, in its latest bid, Google announced the sellers who use its Buy on…
Sellers using the Buy on Google checkout experience will no longer have to pay commission fees, and the platform is being opened up to third-party providers, the company said Thursday. This follows April’s move to provide free product listings in the Google Shopping tab for merchants affected by the coronavirus pandemic, and a similar move…
Showfields, the three-level experiential department store in NoHo (North of Houston Street in Manhattan) that calls itself part retail store, part art exhibition, has reopened its doors (and its famous entry slide) after a months-long shutdown due to Covid-19. But the retailer hasn’t been sitting idle amid the pandemic. Instead, like so many other brands…
Days after TikTok users said they fueled lower-than-expected turnout at President Donald Trump’s rally in Tulsa, Okla., they have a new target: Trump’s online store. A new series of videos are circulating on the platform asking consumers to fill their carts with Trump merchandise–like the $75 Keep America Great ugly Christmas sweater or the $30…
Mack Weldon, the direct-to-consumer men’s apparel brand, is now airing television ads for the first time in the company’s nearly 10-year history, said its CEO Brian Berger. The brand’s ads began airing during the first week of June on a number of channels and platforms including Bloomberg, CNBC, Discovery, Viacom and Hulu. It’s an unexpected…
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