The Infinite Store Inside a Small Format

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For our latest Retail Safari® excursions, our scouts visited several new retail concepts that meet the consumer’s preference for a quick trip but with innovative merchandising and experiential perks. What each of these store formats has in common: a small footprint where consumers can shop fast. Here’s what they get right about consumer expectations. Retail ... 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

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

7 Trips from 7 Explorers: WSL’s Best Retail Roundup

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WSL’s experts are committed to examining retail strategies, but we’re regular shoppers, too. So what does the Shopping Life® look like through the eyes of an experienced retail explorer? We share what shoppers told us they expect in the store now, and our own best shopping experiences so far in 2021. How Do We Define ... Read more

How to Wrestle a Crisis: 8 Retail Revelations from Helena Foulkes

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Helena Foulkes is a rare retail titan. She has spearheaded dramatic transformation as both the former president of CVS Pharmacy, and as CEO of luxury brand Hudson’s Bay Co, and she is a board member at Home Depot. As a cross-channel retail leader, Foulkes has learned how to manage a crisis in real-time. Here, she ... Read more

New Mall Corporate Strategy: Health Hubs for Convenience

New Mall Corporate Strategy: Health Hubs for Convenience blog banner featuring overhead view of busy shopping mall
Massive hospital complexes are so 2015. Today’s healthcare providers have their fingers on the pulse of retail real estate and are swooping in to transform store space into exam and procedural rooms. We share some unfolding examples, and the active role retailers can play based on our consumer survey results. Malls are Replacing Checkouts with ... Read more

A Peek Into the Health Store of the Future

A Peek Into the Health Store of the Future blog banner featuring green and blue background with vector illustration of stethoscope and other medical icons
The future of health care is being seized by retail, from innovative independents offering to relieve joint pain to Walmart installing examination rooms. All of which means the health store of the future is still a free-for-all. We have four observations to help retailers ensure they remain in the health industry’s heartbeat. Health Stores Are ... Read more

Grocers are Right-Sizing the Shopper Experience: Giant, Hy-Vee, Publix

Grocers are Right-Sizing the Shopper Experience blog banner featuring Giant, Hy-Vee, Publix
Socializing in the store aisle is sooo 2017. Today, experiential retail increasingly centers on efficiency rather than entertainment. The trick is understanding the changing definitions of each. For grocery brands Giant, Publix, Hy-Vee and others, it comes down to right-sizing the experience. Here’s what all retailers could learn from them. Aiming to hit the bullseye ... Read more

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