Marketing Tactics

Big Lots is looking to attract shoppers with more than deep discounts.   The retailer is working with Big Red Rooster, Columbus, Ohio, and Alloy, Westerville, Ohio, to develop a store of the future, according to a report in The Columbus Dispatch.  

Noted retail real estate expert Faith Hope Consolo has high hopes for 2017, predicting that bigger-spending millennials and recession-proof retailers will keep sales humming on high streets and in malls, if not in department stores.   “Millennials are going to start shopping differently this coming year,” Consolo told Chain Store Age. “It used to be they’d spend up to 75% of their disposable income on food, but that was a fad. This year, they will start spending more on fitness and fashion.”  

Convenience store operator QuickChek has stepped up its mobile efforts with a geo-marketing program that keeps the brand engaged with on-the-go mobile shoppers.    While QuickCheck’s customers were increasingly becoming mobile-influenced, the 140-plus store chain lacked a dedicated digital marketing team — making it impossible to connect with its shoppers.   

While most retailers reduced traditional advertising spend in favor of digital sources this holiday season, Amazon made an unprecedented move to television.   This was according to the “MediaRadar Trend Report” that examined holiday advertising spend among Amazon, Walmart, Target, Macy’s, Sears, Kohl’s, Nordstrom, and J.C. Penney, between October and November 2016.    When comparing holiday ad spend by retailer, here is how the companies fared:  

Holiday procrastinators may have saved retailers this year.       A jump in consumer spending in the final home stretch helped to offset a slow start to the U.S. holiday shopping season, and is likely to help many retailers beat sales forecasts, Reuters reported.    

L’Occitane has gone high-tech in its New York City flagship.   Located in the Flatiron District of Manhattan, the renovated store seeks to addressing the demands of today’s shoppers for immediacy and information while also channeling the rich heritage and culture of the brand’s Provence, France, roots.     

Los Angeles-based Nasty Gal, which filed for bankruptcy protection in November, may soon have a British owner.   Boohoo.com is bidding $20 million (£16.3 million) for the brand and its customer databases as the “stalking horse” candidate. Based in Manchester, England, Boohoo specializes in fast-fashion and targets teens and young women, the same audience as Nasty Gal.      

Nothing like doing a little shopping as presents are being unwrapped.   E-commerce traffic volume on Christmas Day shattered all previous records according to Verizon Enterprise Solutions’ Holiday Retail Index report.   The report finds that traffic continued to build into the Christmas weekend, and reached feverish pitch on Christmas Day which also coincided this year with the first full day of Hanukkah.