Gen Z is Waiting for You. Are You Coming?

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If retailers and brands want to keep the lucrative, tech-raised shoppers of Gen Z, they need to come all the way to them. Due to technological imprinting, Gen Z’s innate expectations as shoppers far exceed those of other generations, and it presents new challenges, our How America Shops® research shows. So, here are the opportunities.  ... Read more

What’s On Trend For Retail In 2022? Here Are 5 Predictions

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By Bryan Pearson on December 3, 2021  ||  Forbes If the past two years have taught the retail industry anything, it’s to meet the unexpected, eye-to-eye, with more of the unexpected.  Unexpected as in surprising channels, unpredictable brand partnerships and even a dose of the expected. Because consumer desires have not changed; they still want shopping to ... Read more

The Clock is Ticking on Livestreaming and D2C. Are You In?

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How America Shops® surveys of thousands of shoppers and our most recent study reveal nearly half of young consumers have already purchased directly from a brand. We dug deeper into the implications of direct-to-consumer trips, including livestreaming, and discovered a territory rich in retail opportunities. We share examples, here. The Newest Channel in Retail is ... Read more

The Human Store: How Hy-Vee, Nordstrom, Victoria’s Secret and Camp Do it

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Among the reinvented retail formats we have seen that meet post-pandemic shopper expectations, few resonate as deeply as the efforts by some retailers and brands to create authentic, human experiences. What does this mean? From our recent Future Shop® podcast, WSL leaders explain what makes a “human store,” with boots-on-the-ground, Retail Safari® examples.  Your Store ... Read more

The MedMall Delivers the Convenient Healthcare Shoppers/Patients Demand

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As stores leave malls and shopper/patients demand more convenient medical care, what could be more convenient than healthcare in the local mall? The Big Business of WELL movement is becoming the anchor in malls across the country, seizing the opportunity presented by empty retail space. WSL runs a temperature check on “MedTail” to help you ... Read more

Beauty’s Retail Reckoning: Specialty and Mass Retail Poised for Further Gains

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By Allison Collins on October 29, 2021  ||  WWD The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have specialty retailers including Sephora and Ulta Beauty poised to gain even more market share in the U.S., experts said. How many brick-and-mortar retail stores does the beauty industry actually need? That’s the question those in the industry are asking themselves in ... Read more

Gen Z Cares But Expects Retailers to Care More

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Members of Gen Z care about social issues, but they also demand that retailers and brands make sustainable, conscious consumerism easy to achieve. We pulled Gen Z responses from two How America Shops® 2021 reports and compiled the results, to reveal a telling pattern. Do You Really Know What Gen Z Cares About? WSL’s recent How America Shops® study, “The ... Read more

Powerful Partnerships: What Makes Retail Alliances Work

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More big retailers are exploring alliances, with the anticipation that doubling up will double the cachet, more than double the size of the shopper basket – and create a second reason to come into the store. WSL sent its Retail Safari® scouts out to see what works and does not toward this bigger-basket goal, and ... Read more

Are You Honest Enough for Shoppers? 5 Steps to Get There

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We asked shoppers to speak their truths about what they buy, how and why, and learned this: They expect the companies they purchase from to take responsibility for social change and to authentically PROVE it. In short, companies must “show” they are more sustainable, fair and community-focused – across all the media their customers use. Here ... Read more

Destination: Innovation. 4 Retail-Shaking Store Concepts

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Sure, more shoppers are going back to stores, but which ones, and for what reasons? Now that tech has irreversibly changed the shopping trip, retailers have to anticipate a future when consumers find stores less important. These innovative approaches, discovered by our WSL Retail Safari® scouts, are turning stores into destinations.  It’s Time for Retailers ... Read more

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