It is good to be back at GlobalShop! After spending most of the day in sessions, I could feel the energy building as I headed up the escalators to the show floor. Where to go, what to look at first…I followed my senses and found my top 5 interesting things for the day.

Mad for Mannequins

I don’t know what it is, but ever since my first GlobalShop I have been intrigued by the mannequin manufacturers and their booth displays. The shapes, colors, sizes, and vignettes…I love, love, love looking at them. Check out a few of my favorites.

(Almax Mannequins – Patina V – CNL International)

Simple & Functional – Everyone Needs a Hanger

As I walked by Hangerlogic, I was struck by the product variety and the thought of how important this simple, functional item can be in the shopping experience. Continue reading →

Necessity is the mother of invention, so goes the saying.

And that’s what motivated Zel Anders, who conceived her Tomboy Tailors haberdashery after failing to find men’s-style clothing for women, especially in men’s stores. Anders, a one-time paralegal who wanted quality suits, custom-suited to her female frame, knew she wasn’t the first or only woman to want menswear-inspired clothing.

So, when Tomboy Tailors opened its doors this past weekend, Feb. 2, in San Francisco, the retailer became—according to its website—“the very first clothing company in the United States with a permanent store that caters to butch/masculine-of-center women and trans-masculine individuals, as well as all women and men seeking tailored suits and shirts.”

The 1,100-sq.-ft. Continue reading →

It’s a new year and time for list making. J. Walter Thompson (JWT), the global marketing communications giant, has released its 2013 edition of Things to Watch Retail Report, which serves up a forecast of key trends, including drivers that will significantly impact consumer mindsets and behavior in the year to come. Wondering what JWT has its eye on? Check out it out below:

Click-and-Collect
Customers order online, then pick up the goods (frequently groceries) at a store nearby. You read about Tesco’s South Korean pilot program last January in DDI. U.S. retailers testing the waters include Ahold’s Peapod. And Amazon and eBay are getting into the pickup game, too. Continue reading →

I’m pretty sure we just entered the future. You know, the future we’ve been seeing in movies (i.e. The Matrix, Cloud Atlas, etc.) for years. A future where we just have a small device that scans codes and then what we want magically appears.

Yes, that future.

And it’s here now.

Walmart and Mattel recently teamed up to create a 17-mile underground walkway in Toronto that is also a virtual toy store. This way, commuters can walk through while using their smartphones to scan QR codes for the toys they want to buy little Johnny or Susie for Christmas. From there, Walmart ships said toys to their residence—for free. Continue reading →

Leave it to erotica to make retail sales soar.

Only in the land of the free—and I mean this in all sincerity—would 1) a book on erotic exploits to the nth degree (I can barely read through one sex scene!) be a crowd favorite and 2) a major retailer admit that erotic book sales were the reason behind its comparable-store sales increase.

But, that’s exactly what’s happened.
God bless America.

In its most recent quarterly sales report, Barnes & Noble cited that sales of “Fifty Shades of Grey” had been a huge part of its same-store sales increases for the quarter. Continue reading →