WSL Strategic Retail has long advised that to see the future of retail, you have to follow the shopper. And today, many of those shoppers are following someone in very small shoes. Generation Alpha, the oldest members of whom are just now approaching 14, have outsized influence as consumers, in spite of the fact that
One of the key insights coming out of our latest How America Shops research is how much people’s trust has been eroded over the last several years. I suppose that shouldn’t be a surprise in this day and age when the world is in such turmoil. However, we can’t only blame politicians and bankers and
On December 6, 2019, WSL hosted a symposium on the “Big Business of WELL.” An extraordinary group of speakers joined us on stage to discuss the fast-growing wellness business. Retailers from CVS, Walgreens, Kroger, Walmart, Nordstrom and Zappos spoke about how they were adding new products and services, building more “human” stores, and were focused
Six months into the pandemic, in the first of many How America Shops research studies we conducted, 52% of a national sample of shoppers said they were proud of how they were managing. As the pandemic raged on, decimated populations and transformed everyday retail, these Americans were figuring out how to cope, and were proud
The physical store was changing long before 2020, but the pandemic injected a dose of urgency into often-sluggish or piecemeal efforts. The pandemic not only redefined how people shop, it has forced companies to reengineer what stores need to look like now and will in the future. In recent months, as the world opened up,
We’ve all learned a lot in the last 12 months. Personally and in our business lives. We’ve all learned to “pivot” (the designated word of the pandemic), and we’ve heard time and again “you’re on mute.” Both defined the new world we found ourselves in, assuming we were fortunate enough to have a job, could
Today, Amazon’s success goes far beyond how it has transformed the way we think about and embrace digital shopping. It’s too obvious to talk about how Amazon’s approach to search, click and buy has transformed our definition of convenience and service. Twenty years after it launched as a place to buy secondhand school texts, it
Never underestimate the strength of the American consumer. That was clear from the very early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. As our world imploded in a matter of weeks, and uncertainty around both health and economic issues roiled the country, consumers got on with it. It was evident in the first of our COVID-19 series
When I first set out to write this, the U.S. was a very different place. We are now at a moment that calls to mind the opening lines of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it
NEW YORK — I was in Trader Joe’s for the first time in a while. I don’t usually shop there because there’s not a store close to me. What struck me was how the brand story has remained so relevant, so fresh, in spite of much new competition. It also struck me that in a
Recently, I was sitting in a meeting with clients from a large consumer packaged goods company who were discussing amongst themselves how the company’s CMO had added an extraordinary number of people with digital and omnichannel expertise to his team, while they, the customer team leads, had a hiring freeze. Yet, they’re the ones who
If ever there was a topic on everyone’s mind these days it is health. No, don’t panic: I’m not referring to all the vitriol coming out of Washington around the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (although clearly that’s one reason). What I am talking about is how, in this retail environment, where growth is
If you do business in the drug channel, the question of what happened to drug store traffic over the last few months is one I’m sure you’ve been seriously puzzling over. That and several others: Was it an aberration? When will traffic return? Will it return? Why did it happen? And, oh yes, how should
The continuous roller coaster of retail sales results could make even the greatest optimist weep. In recent months, when retailers like Macy’s, Nordstrom, Kohl’s, J.C. Penney and Target reported less than stellar results, it was hard not to take on a Chicken Little view that the sky was falling. Retailers blamed a variety of factors:
