Merchant Musings at Microsoft’s AI Tour

Microsoft’s AI Tour is making the rounds in its global tour. Toronto was a recent stop. Alysa Taylor, CMO of Commercial Cloud & AI, and Chris Barry, former President of Microsoft Canada, presented the keynote and shared some powerful information. Generative AI has the potential to add $187 billion to the Canadian economy by 2030 […]

They Don’t Have To

The WSJ published an article titled: Amazon, King of Online Retail, Can’t Seem To Make Its Physical Stores Work Well, guess what? They don’t have to. One comment in the article said that Amazon didn’t know retail because they were closing stores. This couldn’t be further from reality. Amazon knows their customers and meets them […]

The Whole Sale. On Sale.

We are pleased to announce that The Whole Sale — Profitable Wholesale Strategies for Brands is now available for sale. You can purchase a PDF copy directly from our website: www.retailstrategygroup.com/downloads/the-whole-sale Or, you can grab a Kindle version over at Amazon. On sale for $12.99 (USD) The paperback edition is in the works and will be released in the […]

Not Everything Needs to be On-Demand

Here’s some news that no one expected. Or wanted. The footwear company, Allbirds, has announced that their products will be available for on-demand delivery from Uber Eats. This announcement is part of Uber’s “Climate Collection” on Uber Eats where a selection of climate-conscious brands are being made available for delivery. Considering the spectacular and well […]

Shut Up and Take (More Of) My Money

Word on the street is that Costco is going raise their membership fees by $5. $10 if you are an executive member. Fees haven’t been raised since 2017. Costco delivers exceptional value to its member base. This cannot be argued. I mean, where else are you getting your Kirkland brand products, gold bars and club […]

You Better Be Direct With Me

I appreciate when people are direct with with me. Just come right out and say what’s on your mind, I won’t be offended. When brands want to be direct with me, I might question the decision. I’m looking at you Levi’s, Canada Goose and Sketchers and others mentioned in the Wall Street Journal last week. […]

Paul Smith

In an interview with Footwear News last month, Sir Paul Smith said that he still works at his Mayfair store in London every Saturday. Is he sitting in the back of the store looking at spreadsheets? Absolutely not. He is out there with customers. Talking to them, helping them, learning from them. In his own […]

I Hear Voices

The brand, Outdoor Voices, has taken a rather wild (and peculiar) ride toward bankruptcy. Late last month, it was reported that the majority of the corporate staff was laid off and stores were abruptly closed. One might wonder what caused this brand to stumble and fall flat on its face. Oh yes, that’s right. Another […]

Irritatingly Creating Demand

I like things that provoke a reaction. Outrage, especially that which is expressed via social media, is a particular favorite. At the moment, very loud outrage at the presence of Taylor Swift at NFL games is particularly entertaining. Her attendance is apparently irritating to many football fans. And at the same time, the NFL benefits […]

Providers to Partners

Retailers can benefit by adopting a mindset of “From Providers to Partners.” The intention is to transform relationships. This applies to both internal relationships (within the organization) and external ones (factories and vendor partners). For internal relationships, product development teams can reduce significant amounts of failure work if functions like Sourcing and Materials are actively […]