| We hope our U.S. readers enjoyed a long Memorial Day weekend! We got back from ICSC Las Vegas last week and it was so great to catch up with friends new and old. There was a clear optimism in the air, and we were thrilled to be back in person. We loved it so much in fact, that we are already gearing up for our next in-person event, this time in Peru! David will be speaking at Seminarium Perú Retail 2023, June 14-15 to share our experiences working in LATAM. As the industry continues to rebalance post-pandemic, we’re finding that the need for outside support and perspective is growing, and we’re excited about the opportunity to share our expertise with new and innovative partners. Any chance you’re heading to Peru too? Let us know on Twitter or LinkedIn — we’d love to meet up!
In the news this week we caught up on a successful innovative mall pilot we’re happy to hear is growing, a fulfill-from-store model we’re in full support of, and how retailers can adapt to the new trends in the office workforce. |
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| Simon expands in-stock product search tool to more malls [RetailDive] In an effort to connect shoppers with in-stock items at its malls, Simon is expanding its Simon Search technology into The Mills and Premium Outlets, the company announced on Monday. Since launching Simon Search last June, Simon has added the tool to 187 Simon properties, enabling shoppers to find the products they’re seeking across more than 3,300 stores and 50 brands. |
| How AR Mirrors Blend Visual Merchandising With User Generated Content [Forbes] Augmented reality mirrors offer a lot more than just virtual fitting rooms or the ability to wear digital fashion looks in (semi) real life. For retailers across fashion and beauty, they’re being used increasingly as a tool for visual merchandising or out of home advertising — one that comes with the added benefit of free social marketing via user generated content. |
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| Brands are pairing customer service associates and AI to improve the shopping experience [Glossy] AI-assisted virtual live sales associates are improving the bottom line for brands, while helping to make the online shopping experience more personable and also reducing product returns. While more brands invest in AI chatbots, human-AI collaboration is having more positive effects. |
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| Micro & Last Mile Fulfillment |
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| Walmart opens store-based fulfillment center in Arkansas [RetailDive] Walmart opened a store-based fulfillment center in its hometown of Bentonville. The facility, known as a market fulfillment center, will increase the number of daily orders a store is able to fulfill and frees up store employees to handle other tasks, the company said. It’s Walmart’s second market fulfillment center nationwide, the first being a proof-of-concept center in Salem, New Hampshire. |
| Shipt refreshes membership program with new digital dashboard and perks [GroceryDive] Shipt unveiled plans for an updated dashboard for its membership program along with a series of new value-added perks for members, the company announced Tuesday. The revamped member dashboard also allows for more personalization, making it easier for members to access their benefits, lifetime savings, exclusive offers and preferred in-store shoppers. |
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Retailers Clamp Down on Returns [The Wall Street Journal]
Returns are one of the biggest profit drains for online retailers. Fixing that has become a priority as inflation continues to crimp shoppers’ spending on everything from clothes to home décor. Amazon gives a heads-up to shoppers about items that have high return rates. Online retailer Dress the Population offers discounts to people who agree not to return their purchases. Retailers with large numbers of physical stores such as Zara and H&M are also making adjustments like charging shoppers for sending returns by mail. |
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| Restaurants & Ghost Kitchens |
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| Chipotle prepares national rollout of RFID for food traceability [Supply Chain Dive] Chipotle Mexican Grill is scaling up its use of radio-frequency identification technology to trace ingredients from suppliers to restaurants in real-time. The restaurant chain has “essentially asked all our suppliers” to tag products with RFID, Carlos Londono, vice president and head of supply chain, said last week at the Reuters Supply Chain USA conference. |
| How Restaurants Can Compete with Third-Party Delivery [QSR Magazine] With rising interest rates, inflation, and softening consumer spending, restaurateurs are facing challenges like those experienced during peak pandemic levels, but food delivery apps are no longer the boon they once were. Third-party providers comprised a whopping ~52 percent of food and drink app downloads in 2022, signaling a tug-of-war that is only going to heat up. |
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| The QR-Code Menu Is Being Shown the Door [The New York Times] A dining innovation that once looked like the future has worn out its welcome with many restaurateurs, customers and servers who say it takes the joy out of dining. |
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| How Retailers Should Start Catering to Hybrid-Working Customers [The Wall Street Journal] It isn’t 2019 anymore, and even though many employees have returned to the office, about 40% of the American workforce still works from home part of the time, and many of those people get their work done…whenever. That’s an awful lot of people whose working lives are no longer organized around the rhythms of 9 to 5—and who don’t need to organize their errands or personal lives around that schedule, either. |
| More Americans Are Struggling Financially, as Inflation Takes a Toll [The New York Times] The share of U.S. adults who said they were doing “at least OK financially” fell sharply last year, to 73 percent from 78 percent in 2021, according to the latest Federal Reserve survey. Some 35% of Americans said they were worse off than a year earlier, up from 20 percent in 2021 and the highest share in the nine years the question has been asked. Just 19 percent of respondents said they were better off than a year earlier. |
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| Beloved Discount Retailer Makes a Bold Bet on Malls [The Street] Five Below has built its business by rapidly scaling stores outside enclosed malls. The discounter recently said it planned to open ten stores inside some of Simon Property Group’s malls is a deviation from that strategy but not completely unheard of. Five Below has stores in 21 other Simon properties. |
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