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Volume 4 - Issue 5
2/9/2010
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Walmart’s Latest Move: Source Globally, Build and Assort Locally
By Paula Rosenblum, Managing Partner
Everyone in retail wants to know what Walmart is doing. Like the old Smith-Barney commercials, when the name “Walmart” is uttered, all heads crane in the direction of the sound. Last week our necks craned as the company announced three initiatives: one to consolidate global sourcing operations for hard goods and soft goods in partnership with Li and Fung, another to divide US operations into three groups, to separately focus on real estate and logistics, merchandising and eCommerce and a third to lay off 300 people at its Bentonville, Arkansas corporate headquarters.
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In the Age of Unemployment, an Issue of Human Capital
By Steve Rowen, Managing Partner
It’s no secret that in a tough economy, ordinarily “good” people will resort to uncharacteristically “bad” behaviors. No one knows this more than retailers, because as they told us in our most recent Loss Prevention Report, customers are stealing more goods due to economic conditions. Interestingly enough, they tell us their employees (most likely thankful for a job) have become less of a shrink-hazard, yet due to individual and organized customer theft, more respondents than ever report the priority of LP rising in their organizations (68%).
So with such a need for enhanced LP solutions (and a cognizance of that need), what’s preventing retailers from “getting there”? Read more
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Social Retargeting: Blurring the Privacy Line Even More
By Nikki Baird, Managing Partner
I will freely admit that online marketing techniques have evolved far more quickly than my ability to keep up with them. I try, and I try to maintain a minimal understanding in order to keep up with the implications for brand-consumer interactions. For example, I knew, at a conceptual level, about retargeting - dropping cookies when a consumer visits a site or performs a search but then doesn't buy (or click as the case may be), so that an advertiser can find that consumer later and advertise the item or link to that consumer while they are on a different site. For the most part, I don't have an issue with that because preventing those cookies, or at least monitoring them, can be merely a click away (thank you, Firefox, for Private Browsing).
However, as social networks become more valuable to consumers... Read more
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