Online Retail is Falling Flat – Here’s How to Give it Life

So far, e-commerce has gotten away with just being fast and functional. But in this pandemic, as more shoppers gravitate toward online purchases out of necessity or convenience, it needs to prove it can connect with shoppers more personally. Here are two common-sense ways retailers and brands can engage emotionally, with insights derived from WSL’s ... Read more

How Do Retailers Win Minorities’ Trust? By Doing Something

It’s easy for retailers to say they care about Black customers, but what are they doing to prove it in the store every day? This issue is more pressing now as the pandemic, racial strife and financial concerns heighten stress among all shoppers and store workers. For our latest How America Shops® research, we asked ... Read more

These CPG Categories are Going to See a Big Online Lift

Our research indicates that online shopping for basics, including groceries, will continue to lift as more customers are won over by the channel’s safety, price, and ease. People who bought the basic groceries and health products online as a result of the pandemic tell us about their experience and their future plans. One new long-term ... Read more

A New Set of Values is Changing Shopping Life

In 2020, brands and retailers are shifting their focus to paying it forward, with missions that support responsible living, global preservation, inclusion and other practices that support positive change. But how do you prioritize what will make shoppers happy? WSL’s latest How America Shops® research delves into the new shopper values. It’s 2020, Do You ... Read more

6 Themes in Retail Wellness, from WSL’s WELL Symposium

The wellness culture is taking over consumerism, but how well is it established in your company culture? At WSL’s WELL Symposium, executives from Nordstrom, CVS, Walmart, Walgreens, Zappos and others shared their firsthand experiences of integrating WELL into retail. In Retail, Wellness Must Carry from Cart to Culture There’s little wonder retailers see the Big ... Read more

Apple, Google, are the New Authorities in Healthcare. Is Retail Ready?

If one device can pinpoint the moment in which wellness transitioned from a preference to a retail necessity, it would be the Apple Watch. We look into what Apple, along with tech companies like Google and Microsoft, have in store for consumer healthcare, and how it is changing the retail landscape for health and wellness. The ... Read more

3 Ways to Get Voice-Activated Devices to Pay Off (Hint: You Need a Screen)

Can we talk about voice technology in retail? If retailers are investing in VA technology, they need to be doing so in areas beyond saving time and easy refills. These qualities are building blocks, but growth follows sales, and sales follow browsing. And that browsing must be displayed as well as heard, hands-free. Based on ... Read more

5 Service Lessons from Ikea’s Manhattan Planning Studio

Ikea’s “planning studio,” to open in April, is bringing the suburbs to the city, which apparently is just where new urban dwellers want it. Here are five ways Ikea is going to redesign the shopping trip. Today’s city-dwellers don’t merely want suburban comforts and amenities, they want to live a suburban, urban life – and ... Read more

The Store Shelf is a Huge Underused Media Center

Retailers are over investing in stores of the future and digital technologies while the shelf, where 91% of consumer packaged goods sales happen, remains an emotional wasteland. Shoppers have emotional connections to the categories they buy, triggered by the benefits they expect from using a product, so why do retailers keep delivering transactional experiences? Engage ... Read more

Robomart May Resurrect the Strip Mall: Future Shopping Life

If self-driving stores and same-day delivery are the future of Shopping Life®, encouraging shoppers to stay at home, then what will become of traditional (and outmoded) centers? We have a few ideas… but what are yours? We thought Shopping Life® had changed in the last five years, but the next five (or two) will make ... Read more

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