Oct29
Credit and debit card swipe fees are in the news again, and NRF’s arguments on behalf of the retail industry are receiving widespread attention. The article Will Credit Card Settlement Bring Fee Relief to Merchants? in the New York Times addressed the Department of Justice’s settlement with Visa and MasterCard in a two-year-long antitrust investigation [...]
Oct29
From its beginning as a sailboat equipment company to its success in capturing the admiration and loyalty of legions of landlubbers, Lands’ End has stayed true to its famous mantra, “Guaranteed.Period.®” In addition to the company’s focus on quality, they have kept their eyes on their customer. In 2008 they were named to the NRFF-AMEX [...]
Posted in: eCommerce | Retail Companies | Retail Trends Tagged American Express, communication channels, customer engagement, Customer Experience, customer satisfaction, Customers' Choice Awards, Facebook, kiosks, Lands' End, Nick Coe, NRF Foundation, online retail, social media, twitter, value, video chat |
Oct27
I’d like to think that come Halloween night, when children and adults alike are walking around in their costumes, our pets are looking at us thinking: “I just love my hot dog costume!” But I’m willing to bet that most pets are actually thinking, “If I could, I’d chew this fluffy pig costume right off me.” Either way, [...]
Oct22
If you haven’t noticed yet, it’s almost Halloween. If ever there was a year to dress up, this is it. There…are…so…many…different…options this year. You had to have been hiding under a rock in a cave in Antarctica these last few weeks to not know that Lady Gaga and Jersey Shore characters are a few of the trendy costumes [...]
Oct20
| Posted in Holidays, Video
The air is crisp and there’s even snow on the ground in a few parts of the country. Fall festivals and pumpkins are just about everywhere. Yes, it’s October, which means it’s time to think about…Christmas? While retailers are already gearing up for the holiday season this month, they’re not the only ones: in fact, [...]
Oct20
After releasing our holiday forecast two weeks ago, we waited patiently to see if the findings from our first consumer survey would corroborate – or completely contradict – our economist’s analysis. Fortunately for us, the same conclusions can be drawn either way: the economy is still impacting shoppers, but there is reason for optimism. We’re [...]
Posted in: eCommerce | Holidays | Marketing | Research | Retail Trends Tagged "non-gift" purchases, BIGresearch, Christmas spending, clothing, consumer spending, convenience, customer satisfaction, customer service, discounted shopping, Droid, electronics, Gen Y, gift cards, gifts, holiday forecast, holiday trends, holiday10, iPhone, mobile, mobile applications, mobile retail, online shopping, quality merchandise, recession, retail trends by gender, shopping habits, smartphone, splurge-worthy gifts, sporting goods, value |
Oct19
Last week, NRF released “The Macroeconomic Effects of an Add-on Value Added Tax“, a comprehensive and in-depth report which examines the potential economic impact of a VAT. After generating interest from policy makers and congressional reporters across the nation’s capitol, NRF vice president and tax counsel Rachelle Bernstein was invited to join C-SPAN’s Washington Journal this morning to discuss the [...]
Posted in: Public Policy | Research | Video Tagged C-SPAN, congressional priorities, deficit, employment, government spending, Rachelle Bernstein, reduce spending, unemployment, Value Added Tax, VAT, Washington Journal |
Oct18
This is the stuff retail legends are made of. In 1970, 28-year-old David Green, who worked full-time at a retail store, noticed that women who came in looking for picture frames often couldn’t find what they were looking for. Armed with a $600 loan and a bit of rented garage space, Green and a partner [...]
Oct14
When Shop.org first coined the phrase “Cyber Monday” in 2005, Shop.org staff awaited anxiously for the 2006 holiday season to see if the trend was a one-hit-wonder or if online retail sales would continue to spark each Monday after Thanksgiving. Well, now we know how that played out, and the retail industry as a whole [...]
Oct13
As you may have seen on the news and or heard from local and federal authorities, there are significant threat warnings being issued in Europe. Some specifics of the European threat have been made public in the media prompting the U.S. State Department to issue a travel advisory last week. For several years, NRF has [...]