Archive | December, 2020

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Gifts Must Have More Meaning

This year will go down in the history books as one when consumer shopping behavior changed irrecoverably. With people fearing for their health, they turned online to satisfy more of their shopping needs. And with only certain stores open throughout the retail closures, they reevaluated their needs versus wants when it came to shopping. Needs […]

Ikea Catalog

Ikea Cancels Its Catalog, Breaking a Vital Link in the Customer Journey

As 2020 draws to a close, every retailer is ready to close the books on this most disruptive of years. Ikea is quite literally closing its books. It is ending the 70-year run of its iconic catalog. The Ikea catalog will be relegated to a museum, where it becomes a nostalgic reminder of days gone […]

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Closed store sign

Half of Main Street Retailers Are at Risk of Closing for Good

The latest California stay-at-home orders couldn’t come at a worse time for independent retailers. The orders went into effect at midnight December 6 and will impact over 33 million people in Southern California, San Francisco and the Central Valley areas. Set to last a minimum of three weeks, running right through Christmas, an unknown number […]

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NRF’s Optimistic Retail Forecast At Risk

For the last 25 years, the National Retail Federation (NRF) has kicked off the holiday shopping season in early October with its forecast for holiday retail spending, covering the critical November-December retail sales. This year, however, it waited until the end of November to make its prediction, and as per usual, it was exceedingly optimistic. […]

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American Brands Are Losing Appeal in China, Just as It Becomes the World’s Largest Luxury Market

The Covid pandemic took a big bite out of the reliably buoyant luxury market. The personal luxury goods market, which includes fashion, jewelry, watches and beauty, will drop 23% this year to $257.5 billion, the largest annual decline in history and the first time sales have dropped since 2009, according to Bain’s 2020 Fall Luxury […]

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