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H&M launched on Tuesday on Nordstrom Marketplace, expanding the brand's reach and marking its first launch on a curated retail marketplace in the U.S. H&M is making its marketplace debut with a curated selection of womenswear, menswear and childrenswear, alongside the brand’s activewear line, H&M Move. The offering is expected to be refreshed regularly with new seasonal…

Consolidation has long been a key growth strategy across retail and CPG. Big companies have spent decades buying up competitors, acquiring niche brands, and expanding into new categories. Why? Ideally, a large, varied portfolio would drive scale, diversification, market share, consumer trend alignment, and business growth. But as the industry evolves, are portfolio cracks starting…

Today’s marketers are integrating generative artificial intelligence solutions across workflows, automating key components of campaign creation and orchestration. And they're seeing results in record time. However, the next era of AI-enabled marketing strategies will not be centered on automation. Tomorrow’s marketing leaders will be focused on building agentic AI solutions that can handle complex workflows…

For years, the conversation around commerce media has been dominated by technology and data. The industry has obsessed over the fixtures, including the API integrations, first-party audiences, closed-loop measurement capabilities, and the algorithmic precision of retail media networks. Yet, as we enter a more complex economic landscape, many organizations are finding that the most sophisticated…

Something strange is happening in e-commerce. Consumer spending is up. Online time is up. Yet traffic to major retail websites is declining. The answer is actually quite simple: shoppers are changing how they research and where they buy. Their starting point, which used to be about discovery, is now where they're making decisions. Many may…

Ace Hardware, the world's largest hardware cooperative, has launched Hey ARMA, an artificial intelligence-powered assistant designed to support its nationwide in-store associates with real-time information and guidance. Operated through a handheld device, Hey ARMA provides associates with quick access to product knowledge, project advice, and recommendations, helping them to focus on solving customer problems and…

In the early days of retail media, retailers were told all they needed was to get an on-site ad server and the advertisers would come. “Build it and they will come.” However, they didn’t come in the waves promised. Now retailers are being told to plug in demand channels and the revenue will flow —…

Managing inventory is challenging across all industries, but retailers face the added challenge of scale. While a standard company may need to plan for 100,000 products in a single warehouse, a major retailer needs to manage that same volume across thousands of different store locations. This makes even basic data collection difficult. For example, even…

When bad actors take advantage of retailers, abusing a returns policy or conspiring with an associate to steal from the register, they might be tempted to look the other way. Culturally, the organization doesn’t want to think a consumer could be sneaky — someone capable of wearing a dress to prom with the intention of…

Retailers are moving fast on artificial intelligence. Research from Eversheds Sutherland and Retail Economics suggests that around nine in 10 retail decision-makers are exploring AI agents, and roughly a third are already deploying them in areas like chatbots, forecasting, and personalization. Yet the majority of leaders still report limited returns from those efforts. The issue…

Nike announced a new round of layoffs last week affecting approximately 1,400 employees across the organization, mostly concentrated in its technology department. In a note from COO Venkatesh Alagirisamy, Nike said the layoffs were part of its broader “Win Now” turnaround strategy aiming to reshape its technology team, modernize its Air manufacturing, move some of…

2026 is delivering both challenges and opportunities for retailers and the retail sector. There is no avoiding the unknowns of supply chain pressures and inconsistent consumer purchasing confidence. However, there are opportunities for retailers that get the in-store and omnichannel experience equation right to spur sales, customer loyalty, and satisfaction. Core pieces of this puzzle…

In the U.S., e-commerce sales are projected to reach $1.8 trillion by 2030, according to Forrester. Even then, online will account for just 29 percent of total retail sales, with the remaining 71 percent, around $4.4 trillion, still happening in physical stores. Yet so many loyalty programs are still built around earning points online. Our…

Google is turning Gemini into a storefront. By letting people shop and check out directly inside Gemini, partnering with giants like Walmart, Google has solved the convenience problem. For consumers it means fewer clicks and less friction between discovery and purchase. But for retailers this creates a massive blind spot. When artificial intelligence becomes the…

Best Buy announced Wednesday that its CEO, Corie Barry, would be replaced by another executive at the consumer electronics retailer, Chief Customer, Product and Fulfillment Officer Jason Bonfig. Bonfig will succeed Barry on Oct. 31, when he will also join the board. Barry will stay on as strategic advisor for six months following Bonfig's appointment.…

Retail has always been about conversation. Long before artificial intelligence, the best store associates knew the real sale happened in the exchange — the “what are you looking for today?” that turned a browser into a buyer. Yet somehow, as the industry raced to digitize everything, that conversational instinct got lost and replaced with menus,…

Retailers are facing mounting pressure from one area that’s become impossible to ignore: labor. Pricing, promotions, and inventory strategies only succeed if there are enough people in place to execute them. For independent retailers, labor is no longer just a cost center. It has become the determining factor in whether plans translate into results. When…

If it feels like customers are harder to win over right now, it’s because they are. Across categories and price points, we are all scrutinizing purchases more carefully, weighing alternatives more thoroughly, and demanding clearer value before we buy. Several forces are converging to create this moment of heightened selectivity. Consumers are more informed than…

Retailers have spent the last decade racing toward speed. Faster checkouts. Faster deliveries. Automated personalization. Shoppers want it, and retailers have been more than happy to oblige. For years, that speed helped build loyalty. Brands could keep up with consumer expectations while rewarding customers with convenience they could count on. But it’s no longer enough:…

Staples and Party City announced Tuesday a strategic partnership bringing Party City inside more than 700 Staples locations nationwide and on Staples.com, with plans to expand to additional stores by the end of 2026. The collaboration brings Party City’s selection of balloons, décor and party supplies together with Staples same-day print and marketing services. Customers…