Newsletter Articles
JDA Wants to Change the World
May 13, 2013
As I sat down to write this article, I thought back to how long I’ve known JDA. I can’t attest that I’ve attended Focus, JDA’s user conference, for ten years, but I have certainly known the company as a retail analyst for that long. I haven’t always agreed with the directions JDA has taken over [...]
Business Challenges in Today’s Store
May 13, 2013
Our brand new store report has just released, and it provides stunning clarity into how retailers plan to help bring their largest investments back to life. As the stores try to find their way in a brand new digital world, we asked retailers to candidly share their experiences. The best performers have a vastly different [...]
Four Big Cross-Channel Questions
May 6, 2013
Last week I fielded an inquiry about the biggest questions retailers are asking in cross-channel right now, and I figured the answer was worth sharing. So here are the top questions that I hear retailers currently asking about their omni-channel strategies and/or operations. These are the “big” questions, mind you, not the tactics. What is [...]
Sneak Peek at Our Newest Store Report
May 6, 2013
As Paula notes, the 2013 Store Report is being written by Nikki and I this year. And while all three of us are currently at JDA’s Focus Conference in Orlando (expect a full write-up to follow next week), we’ve had plenty of chance to discuss some of its most key findings in our conversations here: [...]
US Retail, EMV, NFC, and Mobile: Opportunity or Disaster?
April 30, 2013
Last week I attended the CARTES North America conference. It is an event focused more directly on credit card issuers and the technologies that support them. So what was I doing there? Well, increasingly it seems that the future these industry players are building will have direct impact on how retailers engage with customers, and [...]
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 [...]
Omni-Channel Retail Performance Measures: Déjà Vu
April 23, 2013
A long time ago, around 2009, I wrote about killing same store sales as a comparative measure for tracking retail performance. My argument at the time was that store sales were no longer an accurate measure of a retailer’s health, thanks to the strong growth in online. I think same store sales (SSS) lingered even [...]
Demandware XChange 2013
April 9, 2013
Spring conference season kicked off with a bang this year as I trekked out to Las Vegas for Demandware’s annual user conference and a most delightful experience. I’ll wax poetic about Tim Gunn’s keynote and my delightful interactions with him later. What you want to know about, and what I need to talk about is [...]
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, [...]
What’s Keeping Retailers on the Mobile Sidelines?
March 26, 2013
Retailers have never been known to be first out of the blocks with when it comes to new technology adoption. The reasons for this can be boiled down to one thing: with their narrow profits, retailers have no room for failure. However, the most fundamental aspect of the “reset moment” we commonly discuss here at [...]