Author: Chad Symens

Buying Handbags on eBay after National Handbag Day?

Posted on October 17, 2017 by Chad Symens - Blog

eBay is offering a new service called eBay Authenticate, to protect shoppers from buying high-end luxury handbag brands that could turn out to be counterfeit. The service will verify the authenticity of luxury handbags and wallets across 12 brands, including Burberry, Chanel, Christian Dior, Louis Vuitton and Prada. For items valued at $500 or more, eBay will collect 20% of the purchase price and the seller receives 80%. As a special kick-off to the service, eBay will offer the service for luxury handbags valued at $250 or more, claiming 10% of the final sale. eBay wants to provide their consumers with confidence they are receiving real merchandise from these brands. A handbag is purchased in the US on eBay every 13 seconds. Sellers who want to participate should still see profits of more than twice what they can get on other online selling sites, even after giving eBay a cut for the service. Sellers send eBay the handbag and experts at eBay will verify authenticity, then photograph, list, sell and ship the handbag to the buyer. eBay is considering expansion of the service to other brands and categories next year.

Sources: Chain Store Age, eBayinc.com

Post-Hurricane Retail Sales Grow in September

Posted on October 16, 2017 by Chad Symens - Blog

The National Retail Federation (NRF) released a report that retail sales increased 0.5% in September over August, with year-over-year sales growing 3.2%. The US Department of Commerce reported retail sales in September at $483.9 billion. Total sales for July through September rose 3.9% over 2016. These increases were attributed mainly to sales in building materials and supplies, which were up 2.1% over August, after the recovery after the damaging hurricane season. Other categories with increases were clothing and accessories with 0.4% growth, and general merchandise stores up 0.3%. There were declines in the categories of electronics, furniture, health and personal care and sporting goods. September gains continued the pattern of increasing retail sales, which have grown year-over-year every month since November 2009.“Retail appears to have navigated through some rough weather – literally,” NRF chief economist Jack Kleinhenz said.

Accelerated Analytics reports on Retail Sales by Sector and several other key retail industry metrics each month in our Retail Industry Briefing book. We provide the RIBB for free to our customers, partners and members of the retail community. Click HERE to subscribe.

Source: Chain Store Age

Lowe’s Hiring in Florida to Help Hurricane Irma Recovery

Posted on October 11, 2017 by Chad Symens - Blog

As part of a plan to help communities recover from the damage of Hurricane Irma, Lowe’s will be hiring over 3,000 new employees across the state of Florida. This week Lowe’s Home Improvement Stores will hire 200 new employees in the Tampa Bay area alone. The hiring includes seasonal, part-time and full-time workers with positions spanning throughout the stores: cashiers, loaders, customer service, delivery drivers and sales specialists in flooring, millwork, lawn and garden, appliances and pro services. Lowe’s already committed over $1M to disaster relief and recovery from the hurricane last month. This was after also committing $1M after Hurricane Harvey. Lowe’s already employs 19,000 in Florida.

Sources: WFLA.com, TampaBay.com, PR Newswire

How Sephora is Attracting and Retaining Women in Tech

Posted on October 10, 2017 by Chad Symens - Blog

According to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, women hold 23% of roles in the technical ranks at the top 75 Silicon Valley companies. A report from the commission attributes the low number of women in tech roles to long hours, lack of advancement, isolation and inhospitable work cultures.

But at Sephora’s corporate office in San Francisco, 62% of the cosmetic retailer’s tech staff are women, and while the figure alone is notable, so is the way that Sephora attracts and retains their female tech staff.

At Sephora, women lead everything from digital marketing and customer experience in apps to back-end programming of the company’s e-commerce systems. They make up the majority of the 350-person digital and engineering staff and hold 5 out of 6 positions on its digital leadership team.

Sephora attracts technical women by recruiting with focus on a candidate’s potential rather than specific skills and hiring managers are encouraged to take risks, Sephora’s approach represents a departure from the way many large technology companies handle recruitment.

“Even if a female candidate doesn’t have all the requirements for a technical job, we want that person to come in and show what they can do,” says Yvette Nichols, the company’s vice president of talent.

Once in a tech role at Sephora, women at the company are also encouraged to take risks, without fear of failure. While tech companies commonly urge workers to embrace failure, the message at Sephora is specifically tailored to help employees avoid common pitfalls that women encounter in tech careers, people at the company say.

When Jenna Melendez joined Sephora in 2012 and arrived at Sephora’s San Francisco headquarters she said the meeting were free-flowing and open. “Everyone spoke,” she says, “and felt comfortable offering opinions on anything from e-commerce to a shade of blush.”

Sephora’s owner, the French luxury conglomerate and Accelerated Analytics customer LVMH Moët Hennessy – Louis Vuitton, maintains a global workforce of 134,500 that is 74% female. Approximately 38% of key executive positions are filled by women, up from 26% in 2007. And, LVMH has committed to a goal of having women in at least half of its key executive positions by 2020.

Source: Wall Street Journal

Holiday Retail Jobs Look Promising This Year

Posted on October 9, 2017 by Chad Symens - Blog

Retailers are starting to hire for the holiday season, and it looks like the trend for hiring is good. Like last year, 50% of retailers have announced increased hiring for the season. But they are getting more competitive for quality employees: 66% are willing to pay $10 or more per hour, up from 53% in 2016 and 43% in 2015. Great news for those who get hired – 70% of retailers are transitioning seasonal employees into permanent staff, which is the highest in years. A survey by CareerBuilder reveals that there is a “significant year-over-year gain in permanent hiring and a smaller boost in seasonal hiring in Q4” and notes that “many employers are willing to increase pay for both permanent and seasonal staff”. 35% of employers in general are planning to hire for the holiday season, finish up the year, or get prepared for 2018.

Source: Chain Store Age

Kidde & The Home Depot to Distribute Smoke Alarms Across the Country

Posted on October 6, 2017 by Chad Symens - Blog

Where there’s smoke, there’s smoke detectors. At least, that’s the goal.

Few people think about fires until they experience one themselves. But more people report fires than you probably think: approximately one in 338 households each year. That’s more than 360,000 homes.

What’s more: three out of five home fire deaths happen in homes without working smoke alarms.*

Accelerated Analytics customer Kidde and The Home Depot are helping to prevent that. Through Operation Save a Life, The Home Depot partners with Kidde and local fire departments to distribute thousands of smoke and carbon dioxide alarms in communities across the country each year. Since 2002, Operation Save a Life has provided more than 1.36 million smoke alarms in 15 communities.

“A working smoke alarm almost doubles your chance of escaping a fire without injury or death,” said Sharon Cooksey, marketing communications manager for Kidde. “Our mission is to save and protect. Installing a smoke alarm is the first step in doing that.”

Learn more about Kidde HERE and download our Kidde Case Study HERE.

Source: HomeDepot.com

Retail Consumers Want Augmented Realty in Their Shopping Experience

Posted on October 6, 2017 by Chad Symens - Blog

A report by DigitalBridge shows that 61% of consumers expect retailers to have some form of augmented reality (AR) in their shopping experience. 64% of consumers want to see the AR paired with artificial intelligence. Shoppers want to be able to visualize or “try on” products before buying them. AR gives retailers a way to recreate an in-store experience when consumers are shopping digitally. Adding artificial intelligence by incorporating knowledge of what consumers have purchased before or what they have in their digital shopping cart, can get shoppers to buy more items in one purchase. Artificial intelligence can also simulate an online salesperson, recommending products to consumers and help them feel like they are interacting with a person. Retailers who incorporate these strategies see 6-10% sales gains, which is a rate 2-3 times faster than retailers who do not. The experience for shoppers includes tailoring product recommendations, better and more relevant results from consumer search terms and immediate and useful customer service.

Source: Business Insider

Ace Hardware Acquires The Grommet

Posted on October 4, 2017 by Chad Symens - Blog

Ace Hardware announced it’s acquisition of The Grommet this week. Ace Hardware and The Grommet first began working together in 2016 as part of a collaboration to bring new, unique and otherwise undiscovered products from independent entrepreneurs, also known as Makers, into select Ace stores. Successful products shared via The Grommet include FitBit, OtterBox and SodaStream. Both companies will have equity in The Grommet, with Ace having majority ownership.

“Ace’s expansive supply chain and network of 5,034 stores coupled with The Grommet’s innovative product discovery platform combine to give dreamers, inventors, innovators and Makers a sustainable, high quality path to meaningful growth, without having to bow down to the altar of Amazon,” Ace CEO, John Venhuizen, said.

Ace store analytics show the value in this partnership of brick and mortar stores with the digital platform. Current customers of The Grommet visit Ace stores over 50% more times more than the average Ace rewards customer, and spend 2.8 times as much in purchases at the stores.

Accelerated Analytics can provide vendors with item and store retail analytics for Ace Westlake and Ace Corporate stores. Contact us to learn more.

Sources: Chain Store Age, Chicago Sun Times, Ace Hardware

December 2017 Calendar Will Influence Holiday Shopping

Posted on September 27, 2017 by Chad Symens - Blog

In an announcement yesterday, Shoppertrak, a leading provider of shopper analytics, predicted that Friday, November 24th (also known as Black Friday) will be the busiest shopping day of 2017.

For the first time since 2012, there will be four Saturdays in December prior to Christmas Day, influencing shopper behavior. Saturday, December 23rd and Saturday, December 16th are predicted to be the second and third busiest days respectively. Shoppertrak goes on to list their predictions for the top ten shopping days of the year, and claims that those ten busiest days are estimated to account for 40-45 percent of total shopping visits made during the entire 2017 holiday season. It will be essential for brick and mortar retailers to meet the holiday season with sound staffing and inventory strategies.

“The holiday season is prime time for in-store shopping, and this year is no different,” said Brian Field, senior director of advisory services at ShopperTrak. “In fact, because of the rising influence of online, it’s even more important that physical retailers differentiate themselves with knowledgeable associates, stocked shelves and smooth checkout lines to improve customer experiences rather than trying to cut corners in the name of cost savings.”

Timely and insightful retail data analytics like those provided by Accelerated Analytics empower brands to make data-driven inventory decisions and develop a strong inventory strategy. With forecast reports, low inventory and out of stock alerts and more, brands can manage store performance and ensure that their products are on the selling floor during the critical holiday-shopping season and beyond.

Source: Shoppertrak

Forever 21 Set to Open Beauty Specialty Stores

Posted on September 26, 2017 by Chad Symens - Beauty, Blog

Several fashion retailers who cater to younger consumers also have beauty sections in their stores – H&M, Urban Outfitters and Sephora in JCPenny – but Forever 21 is making a big move in the beauty game with plans to open over a dozen stand-alone beauty boutiques under the name Riley Rose. The new stores are being carefully designed to meet the expectations of millennial and Gen Z consumers. The new concept store will focus on beauty and lifestyle items that consumers wouldn’t usually get to try and will include interactive, digitally-focused features as well as in-store entertainment that not only suggest, but encourage social media engagement. Picture a selfie-designated station and touch-screens throughout the store so you can find fall’s coolest trends and then try them for yourself.

Esther and Linda Chang are the daughter’s of Forever 21 founders Don and Jin Sook Chang, and are the masterminds behind Riley Rose.

“We know our customer can open her phone and research anything she sees in our store within seconds, and we embrace this reality by empowering her to explore our offerings through digital and social moments throughout the store,” Linda says.

The first Riley Rose store opens September 30 at the Glendale Galleria in California, with more shops opening by the end of the year.

Sources: Refinery29.com, Cosmeticsdesign.com