No Need to Wait for Driverless Cars

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by Alex Cohen, Lead, Commercial Specialist for CORE Group Marketing In less than five years, Uber and its competitors transformed the way many of us choose to get around cities. Likewise, they disrupted the business and leisure traveler’s attachment to rental cars. Now much attention is focused on how driverless cars will inevitably transform urban and […]

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How Mattress Retailers Can Compete in the Online Jungle

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by Gordon Hecht, Growth and Development Manager, Serta Simmons Bedding Note to brick and mortar mattress retailers: it’s a jungle out there and the jungle starts online. Give up the belief that you sell the one product that people have to try before they buy. It’s not true for apparel, and it’s no longer true […]

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What Do Retailers Actually Need to Survive?

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by Gebhard Rainer, Former President and COO, Coach We all know the retail landscape is overdue for a big change. The department store segment is deeply troubled, traditional brands are facing challenges, and established brands are acquiring smaller brands—in May, Coach acquired Kate Spade in an effort to become a multi-brand organization and rejuvenate its […]

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Whole Foods: what’s really in the purchase for Amazon?

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by Charles Moore, President, Premier Products Amazon’s Whole Foods purchase seems counterintuitive. Why would the highest valued company in the world—with a business model that puts retailers like Whole Foods out of business—want to acquire them? Sure, it would make Amazon the second largest retailer of the long term double digit growth trend in organic […]

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Think You Can Ignore Cybersecurity Advances? You Can’t

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by Darrell Jones, Head of Global Information Security, Herbalife In recent years, we’ve seen more and more large corporations and entities become targets for cybersecurity attacks: Fedex, Amazon, Target, Netflix, and even several countries among countless others have been affected. Threat of cyberattack has led companies to make major changes in the way they store […]

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The Reinvention of Retail: Brick and Mortar will Be Cool Again

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by Gym Tan, Head of China Business Development, The Gymboree Corporation    We’ve all seen the headlines: “Retail Woes Deepen,” “Department stores are dying,” “Online shopping taking over physical stores,” and so on. The reality is that many brands are indeed closing hundreds of stores. Yet, on the flip side, some retailers are growing—Zara has a […]

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The Future of AI in Marketing

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by Warren Raisch, Executive Strategist, IBM Watson Customer Engagement Division The power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming more available for marketers to tap into, helping win, serve and retain their most valuable customers. Leading technology vendors are beginning to build in AI and cognitive capabilities to enhance man-machine interfaces with voice and natural language […]

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Snap’s IPO isn’t Everything, Its Advertising Is

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Mass marketing won’t cut it as targeting on social media continues to grow by Ben Legg, CEO of AdParlor  As the buzz around Snap’s IPO dies down, it is crucial to look beyond its launch and to its advertising. Is Snap a “Third Player” alongside Google and Facebook, or is it another one of the […]

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Is This the End of Bricks and Mortar Stores? It’s Complicated

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Trends shaping the future of retail real estate in the age of multi-platform shopping by Christopher A. Bruck, Former SVP of Leasing at GGP, Inc.  The growth of multi-platform shopping has forced retailers to reevaluate their digital and in-person business models. Recently, retailers, including department stores Macy’s , Kmart, and Sears announced plans to close […]

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Industrial Distributor: Are You “Following the Money” or Truly Addressing a Need?

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by Chip Schramm, President of Turner Supply Company Industrial distribution is a fragmented, competitive landscape where even the largest national firms only command a single-digit market share. But it’s still a growing industry: most of the big players are seeing increased sales, some even upwards of 10 percent. That’s because opportunities are ripe for creative […]

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