Many retailers count on holiday sales for 20 to 30 percent of their annual sales, with some stores deriving even more annual revenue from the short time period between Thanksgiving and year-end. With that in mind, here is a cliff […]
Q4: Opportunities and Challenges for Retailers Read More »
Forget the Metaverse, AI, self-driving cars, and aerial drone pizza delivery; there is an emerging movement among customers who are focusing on yesterday instead of tomorrow. If you think that brings to mind a bit of history from the industrial
An Anti-Tech Backlash Read More »
The Federal Reserve has dramatically raised interest rates over the past few months focused on taming inflation. While some data [and hopeful thinking] suggest that inflation may have recently peaked, we have yet to see major price moderation. The economy
Shifting Economic Gears Present Challenges for Retailers Read More »
Christopher Waller, a senior Federal Reserve official, announced on May 30, that he supports the U.S. central bank’s main interest rate to rise to a level at which it starts to stunt economic growth by the end of the year,
A Cogent Economic Review Read More »
What if the current price increases American consumers are experiencing are not temporary, caused by inflationary pressures, but instead are signs of a once every 70- to 100-year massive economic recalibration? Free Range Pricing We saw this happen in the
Maybe It’s Not Inflation, but an Economic Recalibration Read More »
The Covid-19 recession of 2020 saw big gains for categories of merchandise including groceries, health and wellness-related products, pet food/supplies, furniture, and the DIY or home improvement category. It came as no surprise that while spending more time at home,
Why Green is More Than a Color for 2022 Read More »
By the 1980s, marketers understood that when consumers had all the “essential stuff” they needed and that in the future, those shoppers would buy based on desire, driven by emotion. That supported Maslow’s well-known hierarchy of human needs, a psychological
Living [and Shopping] Through Clouds of Emotion Read More »
The residential real estate market has been a bright spot during the pandemic-driven economic downturn that began early last year. There were initial fears that we might see a repeat of the real estate meltdown that started in 2008, when
What Home Buyers Want Now: 10 Post-Pandemic Priorities Read More »
In the mid-1980s, at a lecture in New York, author and counterculture visionary Robert Anton Wilson introduced his theory about the growth of information, called the \”Jumping Jesus Phenomenon.\” In short, his theory was that it took until the time
Welcome to the Data Sphere Read More »
Covid-19 has now been around long enough for us to start drawing some conclusions from our shared experiences. The Pandemic is far from over and has prompted almost everyone to think deeply about their lives, relationships, values and attitudes. Part
Six Unexpected Takeaways from Covid-19 Read More »
