Newsletter Articles
NRHA 2013 Young Retailer Awards: ‘It’s A Nobile Business’
May 13, 2013
One of the things that I have found satisfying about spending all these years in-and-around retail is that at its essence it’s an “honest business”. People (usually) don’t buy things that they don’t want. Even though I was a career retail technologist and usually fairly removed from the gritty details of day-to-day store operations, I [...]
More on Next-Gen Payments: Digital Vouchers
April 30, 2013
RSR partner Nikki Baird’s column this week (US Retail, EMV, NFC, and Mobile: Opportunity or Disaster?) talks about U.S. retailers’ apparent lethargy when it comes to next-gen payments. It’s a topic that we both know about, having co-authored RSR’s recent benchmark of the state of next-gen payments in retail. I can’t say it any better [...]
Global Retailing Conference: ‘Everything Is Retail’
April 23, 2013
The Global Retailing Conference, hosted by the University of Arizona Terry J. Lundgren Center For Retailing, is a concentrated dive into the state of retailing from the perspective of the executive suite. The conference is both a gathering place for business leaders from throughout the industry, and a teaching opportunity; in addition to all the [...]
The China Trade
April 9, 2013
The status of trade and financial relationships between the U.S. and China are sure to get some people in the U.S. riled up about domestic jobs, taxes, debt, and general economic well-being. That kind of rhetoric got kicked to a high rev level during the Great Recession, as unemployment rates in the States exceeded 9%. [...]
Retail Price Fairness: The Feds Step into the Fray
April 1, 2013
Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that in a surprise move, the Obama Administration announced the formation of the National Consumer Pricing Administration (NCPA) reporting directly to Department of Commerce Secretary Gary Locke. At a press conference last Thursday in the White House press room, President Obama, accompanied by Secretary Locke and Vice President [...]
Why Retail Is Interesting Right Now to One Tech Entrepreneur
March 26, 2013
Back in February 2008, RSR published a column on the subject “The View From Silicon Valley” that highlighted a conversation with Scott Russell, the managing partner of eCarnegie Tech, a venture capital (“VC”) funded incubation facility. At the time, Russell explained the VC world’s attitude towards the retail industry in general: “Over the last decade, [...]
London Calling
March 19, 2013
The UK economy is threatened by a “triple-dip” recession, after the government reported a virtually zero-growth GDP output in January, the country received a credit downgrade, and the pound declined in international money markets. Economists estimate a mere 0.7% growth rate in 2013 and 1.5% in 2014. Subsequently, there is tremendous pressure on the Cameron [...]
Payments: Ground Zero for Omni-Channel Impact?
March 5, 2013
The landscape of payments is like quicksand beneath retailers’ feet these days. No sooner has a group announced a coalition designed to bring clarity to payments’ future than a technology company or telecommunications provider announces a new lone-wolf attempt to carve out its own piece of payments real estate. Between payment industry mandates, titans of [...]
Walmart Worries about 1Q Sales: Should Everybody Else?
February 26, 2013
One of the things I learned in my tenure as a corporate exec was this: don’t memorialize things in e-mails that would embarrass you if they were discovered. I don’t know how many times that particular lesson has to be re-learned, but the latest gaffe comes by way of Walmart’s VP of Finance and Logistics [...]
ARTS Founder Richard Mader: On Standards, Mobile, and RBTE
February 12, 2013
For those of us who know him, saying that Richard Mader, Director Emeritus of the Association of Retail Technology Standards (ARTS, a division of the National Retail Federation), is “outspoken” is a bit of an understatement. It is the force of his character – and his vision – that made the organization such an influential [...]