Retail TouchPoints

JANUARY 15, 2025

Actress Tracee Ellis Ross started building her vision for Pattern Beauty while starring on the sitcom Girlfriends , but it was her lifelong experience as a curly girly (a woman with curled and coiled hair) that inspired the idea and was validated by generations of women with similar experiences. I wanted to actually create products that supported hair the way it grew out of its head not to straighten it or anything, Ross said during a conversation with Business of Fashion s Sheena Butler-Young

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Inside Retail

JANUARY 8, 2025

Christmas and end-of-year sales are big business for retailers but they also drive enormous returns. The high volumes of unwanted gifts and remorseful sale purchases have implications beyond the bottom line the environmental impact of emissions, repackaging and damaged goods is becoming excessive. The Australia Institute projected an estimated $1 billion worth of unwanted Christmas gift waste in 2024, with 27 per cent of Australians expected to receive gifts they will not use.

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Retail Wire

JUNE 11, 2025

Indiana is the latest flash point in Kroger ’s spreading labor unrest. Members of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 700 — representing roughly 8,000 clerks, meat-cutters, and pharmacy techs across central Indiana — rejected a tentative four-year agreement by a lopsided 74% “no” vote. The “no” vote automatically activated strike authorization, giving leaders the legal power to call a walkout at any moment.

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Small Biz Trends

JUNE 19, 2025

Key Takeaways Thorough Market Research: Conducting in-depth market research helps identify industry trends, competitor strategies, and customer preferences, providing a competitive advantage. Define Your Target Audience: Knowing your target demographic and their shopping behaviors allows for tailored product offerings and effective marketing strategies.

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Speaker: Matt Sunshine, CEO at The Center for Sales Strategy

AI isn’t replacing salespeople—it’s empowering them. The most forward-thinking sales organizations are using AI to enhance human performance rather than eliminate it. From coaching and messaging to prospecting and pipeline accountability, artificial intelligence is giving managers and SDRs the new tools they need to work smarter, sell better, and close more.

Accounting

Retail Focus

JUNE 24, 2025

Visual merchandising is an essential tool for retailers aiming to boost sales and improve customer experience. It involves strategically presenting products in a physical space to engage customers and encourage purchases. This blog post will explore how effective visual merchandising can positively impact sales and offer practical tips retailers can implement to enhance their display tactics.

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Retail TouchPoints

JANUARY 23, 2025

Following a raft of stores closures in 2024, retail advisory firm Coresight Research predicts that closures will escalate further this year, to approximately 15,000. Store openings are expected to remain steady at approximately 5,800 (compared to 5,970 in 2024), but that would still represent a net loss of more than 9,000 stores. Supporting these expectations is the fact that more than 2,000 planned closures already are underway this year.

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Retail TouchPoints

JANUARY 24, 2025

The Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act (MoCRA) introduces significant regulatory changes for the cosmetics industry, aimed at enhancing consumer safety and product transparency. This article explores the essential MoCRA requirements, from new facility registration and labeling rules to adverse event reporting and Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP).

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Retail TouchPoints

JANUARY 13, 2025

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been a headline topic at the National Retail Federations annual Big Show , and NVIDIA is undoubtedly one of the companies leading the industrys innovation in this sector. Typically known for its Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), which power breakthrough technologies for companies like Meta and Open AI , NVIDIA is now staking a claim in the retail industry by powering solutions for companies ranging from LOral to Lowes and Walmart.

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Retail TouchPoints

JANUARY 7, 2025

With the holiday season out of the way, next to come is a wave of returns that will stretch into the new year. Given the heightened focus on return policies during this period, it is an opportune time for customer fulfillment leaders to raise awareness within their organizations about a persistent challenge confronting retailers: the rise in retail returns fraud.

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Inside Retail

JANUARY 6, 2025

Amazon, the $2 trillion gorilla, arrived on our shores officially in December 2017, just in time for Christmas. And some seven years on, much to the dismay of retailers, it is now starting to shake the tree and become a real force in the market , as Australian shoppers increasingly turn to alternatives to manage the cost-of-living crisis. Amazon announced it posted over $3.1 billion in sales revenue (across cloud, advertising and marketplace sales) in calendar year 2023, up from $2.63 billion in

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Speaker: Steve Worthy, MBA

The rapid rise of AI-powered displays, touchless technology, and sensory marketing is reshaping the future of in-store engagement. Yet for many retail executives, the real challenge is not identifying new tools - it is knowing which signals to trust, which inputs to prioritize, and how to architect decisions that elevate in-store leadership rather than dilute it.

Marketing

Retail TouchPoints

JANUARY 29, 2025

In the highly competitive world of retail and ecommerce, brands must deliver personalized and relevant customer experiences to stay ahead. Tailoring product descriptions, marketing campaigns and customer service to align with varying consumer preferences across regions and languages not only increases conversion rates but also drives trust and credibility, thereby building long-term customer loyalty.

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Retail TouchPoints

JANUARY 29, 2025

The problem of counterfeit products remains, paradoxically, both enormous and under the radar. One big reason: given how widespread, global and (by necessity) publicity-averse its practitioners are, its difficult to put an exact price tag on the costs of counterfeiting. Difficult, but not impossible. John Ferdinand, who heads the anti-counterfeiting team at intellectual property (IP) management firm Marks & Clerk , said that in the European Union (EU) alone, the apparel industry loses approx

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Retail TouchPoints

JANUARY 8, 2025

Ulta Beauty has teamed up with Instacart to offer same-day delivery from its more than 1,400 stores acrossthe U.S. in as fast as one hour. Instacart customers can now shop a wide selection of skin care, hair care, cosmetics, fragrances and wellness products from Ulta. The partnership also integrates Ulta Beauty Rewards into the Instacart app , allowing members to earn points on every Ulta Beauty purchase made via Instacart by linking their accounts through Ulta Beauty’s storefront.

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Retail TouchPoints

APRIL 2, 2025

Look around. Smartphones are practically an extension of our hands. Were bombarded by thousands of digital messages daily, and cutting through the noise has never been more challenging. Yet despite the digital deluge, one channel continues to surprise marketers with its ability to connect, resonate and engage. You guessed it, mail. Combine it with the precision and scale of digital and youve got a recipe for audience engagement thats as powerful as it is personal.

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Speaker: Jason Cottrell and Gireesh Sahukar

Retailers know the clock is ticking–legacy SAP Commerce support ends in 2026. Legacy platforms are becoming a liability burdened by complexity, rigidity, and mounting operational costs. But modernization isn’t just about swapping out systems, it’s about preparing for a future shaped by real-time interactions, AI powered buying assistants, and flexible commerce architecture.

Planning

Inside Retail

JANUARY 5, 2025

Woolworths and Coles, Australias supermarket goliaths, have gone from Covid-19 heroes to cost-of-living villains in the last two years. Two of the nations major employers, with a combined workforce of 320,000 staff and about a 66 per cent share of the grocery market, Woolworths and Coles endured a 2024 they would no doubt rather forget. There has, of course, been political and media scrutiny of the supermarket sector in the past but in 2024, Australias two largest retailers were caught in a poli

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Retail TouchPoints

JANUARY 9, 2025

Want to enjoy the best of the outdoors without, you know, actually going outside? Then the recently opened London flagship of The North Face is the place for you. The retailer, working with Mood Media , has created an experiential retail location equipped with a large-scale LED visual wall displaying curated content, carefully chosen music and even a custom fragrance, White Pepperwood, carrying the scent of the outdoors through the air.

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Inside Retail

MARCH 11, 2025

The digitalisation of media has seen advertising budgets diverted towards social media campaigns and search engine marketing in Australia, 70 per cent of digital advertising spend goes to Meta and Google. For many retailers, these platforms have grown to consume the whole marketing funnel and their templated options have become the default. Metas advertising revenue in 2024 grew year-on-year, with ad impressions up 6 per cent across all platforms, however, price per ad increased by 14 per cent

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Retail TouchPoints

JANUARY 23, 2025

In the early 2010s, technology forecasters and business analysts painted a compelling picture of the future of customer service: chatbots would dramatically cut labor costs and transform how consumers interacted with brands. Fast forward to today, and the reality has yet to live up to the hype. While chatbots have found their place in the customer service ecosystem, they havent achieved the dominance and ubiquity that many predicted.

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AI agents already analyze trends, draft content, and trigger actions across leading commerce platforms. Yet most organizations still rely on workflows built for human‑only teams, losing speed, margin, and customer loyalty. Humans + Agents: Rethinking Enterprise Commerce in the Age of AI Collaboration shows how to close that gap. In one concise read you’ll see where agent gains surface first, how early adopters prove ROI, and which lean controls keep innovation moving without risking data or bran

Inside Retail

MARCH 26, 2025

After a four-year hiatus, G-Star Raw is poised to re-establish its presence in Australia and New Zealand, emerging from a turbulent chapter in the market. The Australian arm of the Dutch-founded denim giant, established in 1989, collapsed into voluntary administration in early 2020 as the advent of covid engulfed the market. G-Star Raws 57 outlets across the country closed their doors.

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Inside Retail

JANUARY 14, 2025

Last week, a new addition to Kmarts product range made Alex Gransbury rethink his approach to patenting. He was on a call with one of his Dreamfarm employees when he first heard that one of his inventions had been copied and pasted. For Gransbury, who has invented products in a MacGyver-like fashion for over 22 years, designing new products that are fit-for-purpose and exceed customer expectations.

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Inside Retail

JANUARY 13, 2025

If you don’t have your narrative set, someone else will tell your story, said Katie Welch, the chief marketing officer of Rare Beauty. That was one of the key messages delivered on the second day of Retails Big Show, the National Retail Federations (NRF) annual conference and expo, which is being held in New York City this week. Major players in the retail industry like Tracee Ellis Ross, the founder and co-CEO of Pattern Beauty; Tommy Hilfiger, founder of the iconic eponymous apparel bran

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Retail TouchPoints

MARCH 20, 2025

These days it seems everyone is an AI company whether the goal is boosting SEO or sales or just general prestige, any company that is able to has tacked AI somewhere onto their name or tagline. Stitch Fix , however, has resisted that urge, despite having been an AI-centered company from its inception 14 years ago. In fact, while others look for ways to work AI into every sentence, Stitch Fix has decided to shine the spotlight on something else its human stylists.

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Category Management is a cornerstone of a successful retail strategy. While it promotes collaboration between manufacturers and retailers to optimize category performance, challenges persist in its effective implementation due to hurdles in communication and collaboration across teams and partners, and more. In this guide, we outline five essential strategies for success in 2025 that will touch on all the essential pieces of a successful strategy and implementation.

Management

Retail TouchPoints

JUNE 23, 2025

This article first appeared in our sister publication Shop Eat Surf Outdoor (SESO). Journeys , one of the largest footwear retailers in the country with over 1,000 stores in North America, has been one of the most important large wholesale accounts for footwear brands for decade. However, leaders of several large industry footwear brands have expressed frustrations with the retailer over the years because they believed Journeys wasn’t evolving, even though good people and good merchants worke

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Retail TouchPoints

MAY 27, 2025

Earlier this spring, Amazon and Walmart released investor updates within one day of each other that presented an interesting juxtaposition of how the two companies approach innovation: The long and short of it is that Amazon is a Why company, while Walmart is an And company. Walmart CEO Doug McMillon in an April 9 update following the companys investment community meeting: Were an and company.

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Retail TouchPoints

MARCH 4, 2025

When retailers discover that a particular product isnt selling as well as it normally does, there are many potential explanations. Is there a new, similar product on a nearby shelf thats priced for less, or one thats being heavily promoted by the manufacturer? If its a new product, has it been placed in the correct aisle? Is it placed near enough to eye level for shoppers to easily find it?

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Retail TouchPoints

JANUARY 3, 2025

Given that different cannabis products can produce a wide range of effects among consumers, one of the biggest challenges facing cannabis retailers is matching the right product with the right customer. To the newbie consumer, theres a confusing welter of terms like indica and sativa as well as the multiplying variations of edible products, each with different levels of THC and other ingredients that affect the products impact.

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Speaker: David Worrell, CFO, Author & Speaker

Your financial statements hold powerful insights—but are you truly paying attention? Many finance professionals focus on the income statement while overlooking key signals hidden in the balance sheet and cash flow statement. Understanding these numbers can unlock smarter decision-making, uncover risks, and drive long-term success. Join David Worrell, accomplished CFO, finance expert, and author, for an engaging, nontraditional take on reading financial statements.

Finance

Retail TouchPoints

JANUARY 16, 2025

As digital experiences have evolved over the past few years, personalization and emotional connection have become central to customer engagement strategy for companies. According to Forresters U.S. Customer Experience Index (CX Index ) rankings , only 3% of companies are currently customer-obsessed and put their customers needs front and center. Which is completely counterintuitive.

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Retail TouchPoints

FEBRUARY 4, 2025

The retail industrys rapid adoption of generative AI technologies will continue in 2025. Throughout 2024, many retailers moved gen AI projects from pilots into production. In 2025, retailers will scale these AI projects across the enterprise and embed the technology into core operations of their business. Today, retailers face a complex landscape marked by rising costs, supply chain disruptions, pricing pressures and high employee turnover.

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Inside Retail

JANUARY 10, 2025

As head of digital at Metcash’s Independent Hardware Group (IHG), the $2.1 billion business behind Mitre 10 and Home Hardware, Anna Kismet is a firm believer in using technology to solve unique business problems. One problem she has been working on since joining IHG in 2022 is how to manage the backend systems and processes for a business, Mitre 10, with over 500 stores that are all individually owned and operated. “From a technology point of view, you have multiple point-of-sale sys

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Retail TouchPoints

JANUARY 3, 2025

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has sued Walmart and Branch Messenger , alleging that the partners forced the third-party delivery drivers in Walmarts Spark Driver program to use costly deposit accounts to access their earnings and in the process harvested more than $10 million in fees from the workers. Walmarts Spark Driver program uses gig workers to make last-mile deliveries from Walmart stores across the U.S.

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Advertiser: ZoomInfo

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