Retail & Merchandising

Walmart Opens New Stores: You’re Not Allowed In. They look like stores. They stock popular products. But you can’t go inside. Walmart is piloting “dark stores” in Dallas and Bentonville—brick-and-mortar locations that fulfill only online orders. No customers. No carts. Just pickers, packers, and speed. This isn’t omnichannel. It’s reverse omnichannel—physical space built to serve digital demand. It’s working: Walmart’s U.S. e-commerce is now profitable, with Q1 sales up 21%. Deliveries under 3 hours grew 91% year-over-year. They expect to reach 95% of U.S. households within that timeframe. What’s driving this? * Tech-powered logistics (drones, AI, automation) * Streamlined assortments and faster turns * Customers willing to pay for speed What does this mean for brands? If you’re not easy to pick, ship, and deliver, you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time. * Visual merchandising becomes data merchandising. * Packaging becomes performance. * Shelf appeal becomes search appeal. This tactical shift is both a challenge and a call to evolve. The store of the future may not need shoppers. But it absolutely needs suppliers who understand the choreography of fulfillment. Would love to hear how others are preparing for a world where brick-and-mortar goes dark. #RetailStrategy #Ecommerce #Logistics #Walmart #DarkStores #RetailInnovation #ConsumerBehavior #RetailTransformation #LastMile Bloomberg Retail Dive Amazon Kohl's

Brad Pitt’s new F1 film is a masterclass in how brands can show up in culture. A $300 million budget. Real F1 tracks. And luxury brands fighting to sponsor a team that doesn’t even exist. It’s entertainment, sport and marketing all blending together... and it’s re-writing the playbook for how brands embed themselves into culture. Here’s what makes it stand out: • A fictional F1 team, APXGP, filmed during real Grand Prix weekends. • Brad Pitt, trained in a modified F2 car, driving alongside actual F1 drivers. • Lewis Hamilton co-producing to capture the authentic essence of the racing world. • Real brands like Mercedes-Benz AG, SharkNinja, IWC Schaffhausen and Tommy Hilfiger actively sponsoring a fictional team. • Actual drivers, including Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz, making cameo appearances. • All set for release in cinemas June 2025, followed by streaming on Apple TV+. This isn’t just clever product placement, it’s narrative integration at its best. Real brands woven into a fictional story, filmed in real-time at actual events. And it’s a glimpse of where brand marketing is heading. The film isn’t even out yet, and here we are talking about the brands already. That’s how you build long-term equity. This is the new standard in marketing: • Culture first, commerce second. • Stories over traditional advertising. • Integration, not interruption. If your brand isn’t part of the stories people care about, good luck buying their attention. Learn from this. Build worlds people want to be part of. Create stories they’d miss if they disappeared. And find ways to turn up in that culture and be part of the narrative. Rather than looking for ways to interrupt them.

Customers didn’t stop spending. Companies stopped serving. That’s the headline of an interesting article from CNN, which is linked in the comments. As we move into retail earnings season, it’s important to keep this nugget of truth in mind. A lot of companies, especially those which are performing badly, will blame external factors like the economy. Is this valid? Sometimes; but more often than not, it isn’t. The chart below partly shows this. It maps the Q1 revenue growth for retailers against customer satisfaction scores from the same period. We measure 42 different aspects of satisfaction on our consumer panel, and the scores below are an average. There is a general trend. A lot of low- or no-growth companies like CVS, Walgreens and Kohl’s also have low satisfaction scores. Basically, they’re not getting things right for customers. Comparatively, retailers like Dick’s, Abercrombie, TJMaxx, Amazon, Walmart and so forth, broadly satisfy their customers and secure growth. The most interesting part, however, is the top left: companies that have good satisfaction scores but are not generating much growth. Generally, these are firms that have some can, genuinely, blame external factors. Home Depot and Lowe’s are excellent retailers, but they’re coming off enormous revenue growth during the pandemic at a time when the housing market is incredibly soft. And Bath & Body Works is still resetting after the big home fragrance surge during the pandemic and is facing stiffer competition. The lesson is don't automatically believe the excuses. Look and see what other things are driving success, or failure. #retail #retailnews #perfromance #economy #customersatisfaction __ Chart shows Q1 growth rates against customer satisfaction scores from 0 to 100 for the same period.

🚨Amazon has built a really cool new ad tech to monetise Prime videos, but it’s not what you would have thought! 🚨 To appreciate this new ad tech we need to go back in time and look at some history. We would have all watched on movies and tv shows where products have been strategically placed to drive brand awareness and recall. The hit show Stranger Things had about a 140 brands featured in the 4th season with some estimates sizing it to $27million in brand placement value. And this is just one season of one show. As more and more people are disengaging with intercepting ads, brands and media producers are trying innovative ways to gets brands in front of eyeballs without being skipped. Now if a studio had to integrate with brands, it requires for them to coordinate before hand with the brands and figure out where to strategically place the products and shoot the content. Enter Amazon’s Virtual Product Placement Technology. Virtual product placement is an emerging technology that inserts a digitally rendered product, billboard, or logo into a movie or TV series after it has been filmed. Amazon collaborates closely with content creators when determining placement locations and available product categories for each participating title. All decisions are made in line with the artistic vision for each movie or series, with a shared goal that placements will not interfere with the story or affect the viewer’s enjoyment. Brands are expected to spend upwards of $125bn by 2026 on video ads, so it’s a pretty huge market they are going after. Stats also show that 63% of viewers say they feel the urge to buy a product when they see it featured in a TV show with GenZ leading the pack. In a specific case study, Bubly a sparkling water brand saw a 18.1% lift in aided recall, 6.8% lift in brand favourability, 16.5% lift in purchase. This ad format becomes even more powerful when you combine it with Amazons e-commerce marketplace where marketeers can do full funnel advertisements all the way from awareness to purchase. Secondly, with post production virtual product placement, the same product placement could be bid by different brands for e.g the scene having bubly could very well also have any other canned drink which ever fit into the category. I must say this is by far one of the most impressive ad tech I have come across in recent times and Amazon is truly Priming us to purchase.

Big brands used to avoid Amazon. But now look at Adidas. They’re using Prime to power their own DTC sales. What’s happening now is fascinating: - Some of their products are Buy with Prime eligible. - Others are only available through DTC fulfillment. - They’ve created dedicated Black Friday Prime shipping pages on their site. This isn’t just a conversion play. It’s operationally smart too. Because they don’t need to split inventory anymore. They can centralize fulfillment and use Amazon’s logistics across both DTC and Prime checkout. That means faster shipping, especially around the holidays, without giving up control of their brand story or customer data. And yes, they still gatekeep select drops and exclusive lines to their own channels. Smart. Years ago, most major brands wanted nothing to do with Amazon. Now… they’re leveraging Prime off Amazon too. You can try to force your customer to shop where you want them to. Or you can let them buy where they already are, and win.

With the likes of B&M Retail, Poundland & Dealz and Primark coming under pressure, are we falling out of love with discounters? Britain isn’t, but our relationship is evolving. Consumers are savvier, competition is fiercer, and legacy players need to evolve to stay relevant against changing shopping behaviours. The surge during the cost-of-living crisis, when middle-class shoppers embraced value retailers, was always going to be difficult to sustain. Now, with discretionary incomes gradually recovering, we’re seeing selective spending on small indulgences and experiences. That said, middle-income families remain under pressure, squeezed by rising housing costs, rent hikes, and debt repayments. The least affluent households, who are core discount shoppers, are feeling the brunt of the squeeze. Their discretionary income remains lower than 2021 levels, reinforcing price sensitivity as the economy navigates a long and uneven path toward stable inflation and growth. But structural issues are also at play. Competition is brutal. Traditional grocers such as Sainsbury's and Tesco have aggressively defended market share with Aldi UK price matches and membership pricing to stave off German discounters. Meanwhile, SHEIN and Temu are rewriting the rules of discount retail in non-food, offering ultra-low prices with ultra-convenience that undercut traditional high street players. At the same time, discounters have struggled with rising prices, eroding their appeal. The omnichannel gap is widening. Primark’s strong click-and-collect performance of late highlights what high street discounters traditionally lack: seamless digital integration. Without it, they risk losing shoppers to cheap online rivals, particularly in clothing and homewares, leaving big box players with excessive store space. Recommerce is also surging. The cost-of-living crisis has accelerated pre-loved shopping just as technology has made second-hand retail more accessible. The likes of marketplace Vinted and parcel locker service InPost make fragmented second-hand spending easier than ever. This interest isn’t going away. We estimate UK recommerce is worth over £6bn today and is set to double to over £12bn by 2028 (Retail Economics, MPB). Concerningly, discounters face another squeeze: rising tax burdens. Retailers must decide whether to absorb costs, automate, or pass on higher prices. In any case, price alone is no longer enough. Long-term resilience depends on product proposition, agility, and digital integration. Great to discuss this with The Times’ Isabella Fish – article linked below. https://lnkd.in/eJUpqa6J ____________________________________ ⤴ Follow me for weekly retail, consumer and economic insights. ____________________________________

Killer graph. The cost of the Budget headwinds facing the sector from the beginning of April is staggering - £5.56bn over the next financial year. We conducted a comprehensive piece of research in partnership with YOOBIC, which not only measures the impact of the Budget, but also quantifies its effect across the industry through rising consumer prices, pressure on margins, and highlights the strategies retailers are adopting to mitigate these challenges. £5.56bn - it's an astonishing figure. Changes to employer NIC contributions have the largest impact, adding £2.48bn to retailers' costs - made up of £1.9bn from the reduction in the threshold and £0.6bn from an increase in the rate. The uplift in NLW and NMW adds a further £2.4bn, while a reduction in business rates relief and the overall uplift adds another £0.7bn. I’ve spoken to many retailers about the extent of these costs, and it’s clear that this represents a structural shock - a resetting of the cost base. Rising labour costs have sparked widespread discussions around the implementation of technological solutions, which are now more easily justified by the increased financial pressure. When retailers consider how to mitigate these costs, our research revealed the three main levers they plan to use: ➡️ 31% of the cost impact will be passed on in the form of higher prices - equating to around £1.7bn passed on to consumers. ➡️ 32% will be absorbed in the form of reduced profits. This £1.76bn hit equates to roughly 6% of total industry profits. ➡️ 37% said they would attempt to offset the impact through cost optimisation strategies. However, passing costs on only works if a retailer has pricing power. In this climate, it’s increasingly difficult to pass on the full burden to consumers without some knock-on effect on demand. Our research shows that small retailers and pure online retailers were the least confident about passing on costs to consumers. Larger businesses felt more confident that this strategy could be effective. Cost optimisation is likely to focus on five main areas: ➡️ Efficiency and productivity ➡️ Pricing strategies ➡️ Financial engineering ➡️ Business model restructuring ➡️ Margin management Retailers are re-evaluating how they operate, where they operate, and who they operate with. Download the research for free here ⬇️ https://lnkd.in/e4_v4KjQ There’s so much more data and insight based on the experiences of over 100 retail leaders, outlining the tactics and strategies businesses are adopting to combat these challenges. I hope this helps some in the industry navigate these choppy waters!

Is THIS the best ad campaign ever? In 2015, Sport England challenged ad agency FCB Global to close the 2 million strong gender gap by getting women more active. The agency used the insight that women often feel 'fear of judgement' in exercise, to create the campaign 'This Girl Can'. The campaign is a rallying cry to women to get active in THEIR own way by replacing fear with a 'don't give a damn' attitude. This is shown with bold copywriting, relatable casting, REAL moments (the make-up smudged under the eyes, normal jiggling bodies, menopausal sweat, period cramps, tampon string hanging out your pants) and a true sense of female camaraderie. Since it's launch: - 3 million women were inspired to exercise as a direct result of seeing the campaign - 1000+ social media mentions each day - 37m views across social media - 500,000 active members in the This Girl Can community - Cannes Lions award The campaign is evidence that advertising can make great impact and drive change in many little corners of the world. THIS is the result of a clear brief, unifying insight and - in this case - a dedicated female creative team who truly 'understand' their audience. But more than that, it's the result of a LONG-TERM campaign that has been running for almost decade, and continues to re-engage the audience in various different ways, globally. I think there is such a short-term mindset in advertising nowadays. Mainly due to the fast-paced nature of social media, the need to 'go viral' and the economic need for performance marketing tactics to generate cashflow. But without the longer-term brand campaigns, we are missing the ability to build strong narratives and make REAL change in the world. And with that, stronger brand salience, brand love and LEGACY. This is an element of advertising that I fell in love with years ago. And an element that I see really defining which brands stand the test of time, an which fall apart years down the line.

Influencing people and attracting customers with technology is all about leveraging digital tools, platforms, and strategies to build engagement, trust, and value. What can you learn from this bird? - **Personalization and Data Analytics:** - Create Personalized Experiences: Utilize data analytics and AI to tailor customer experiences, such as personalized product recommendations and custom content, fostering a sense of relevance and connection. - Gain Customer Insights: Analyze customer behavior to understand preferences and needs, enabling businesses to refine their offerings and messaging effectively. - **Social Media and Digital Presence:** - Boost Social Media Engagement: Platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn facilitate direct customer engagement through interactive content creation and community building around your brand. - Collaborate with Influencers: Partnering with influencers extends your reach by leveraging their follower base and credibility. - **Automation and AI-Driven Marketing:** - Implement Chatbots and AI Support: AI-driven chatbots enhance customer support responsiveness and service quality, while automation tools streamline communication through email marketing and CRM systems. - Leverage Predictive Marketing: Use AI to anticipate customer needs, ensuring satisfaction and loyalty. - **Interactive Technology:** - Offer AR/VR Experiences: Immersive AR/VR experiences enable customers to virtually try products, enhancing the buying process and engagement. - Develop Interactive Websites and Apps: Intuitive platforms boost customer satisfaction, driving longer interaction times and increased conversion rates. - **Trust through Transparency and Security:** - Ensure Blockchain and Secure Transactions: Utilize blockchain and encrypted payment systems to foster trust and ensure secure transactions. - Showcase Reviews and Testimonials: Use technology to display user reviews, ratings, and case studies, building trust through social proof. - **Innovative Product Features:** - Integrate AI and IoT: Products incorporating AI or IoT attract customers seeking cutting-edge solutions. - Offer Mobile Apps and Tools: Complement your product with apps or digital tools like fitness trackers and others. #ai #technology #marketing via @ferarrigophoto

While competitors sold mattresses at ₹10,000, we launched at ₹29,900. Amazon and Flipkart said it wouldn't work, because our price was 3X what sells on their platforms. Today, The Sleep Company is the fastest-growing mattress brand in India. People ask how we convinced customers to pay a premium for a mattress. The answer isn't about pricing. It's about understanding value. Indian customers are willing to pay ₹1 lakh for an iPhone, and ₹2 lakh for a Royal Enfield. It’s not because they're "affordable”, but because the value is clear. So, the real question isn't "Can they afford it?" It's "Do they believe it's worth it?" Most brands price like this:  Cost + Margin = Price But, we flipped it to Value-Based Pricing:  What's the transformation worth to the customer? = Price Our product wasn't just 3x the price, it also delivered 5x the outcome. And every touchpoint communicated that. But most of the brands end up making these mistakes: 📍Underpricing to "get traction"  📍Overpricing without differentiation  📍Changing prices too often Here’s what worked for us instead: 📌 The sweet spot wasn't the lowest. 📌 Focused on value perception - packaging, unboxing, communication reinforced "premium." 📌 Invested in experience - website, stores, after-sales. Premium pricing demands premium delivery. As a result: 📍₹60,000 became our best-selling price point 📍Customers didn't ask "Why is it so expensive?" They asked, "When's the next collection?" Premium isn't about charging more. It's about being worth more. And if you deliver on that, the market will pay.