#in-store-merchandising

#in-store-merchandising

Regulators are paying more attention to data privacy because their constituents consider it a 'kitchen table' issue, highlighting its importance in everyday life.

The campaign explores the relationship between graphic identity and natural motifs, with the S-check pattern reinterpreted through cherry blossom imagery, establishing a contrast between graphic order and natural variation.

Target is not an everything store, said Fiddelke, who took over as Target's chief executive last month. He said Target would focus on winning busy families as its primary customer base. Target will also increase capital spending by 25% to $5 billion this year to bolster operations, technology and other areas of the business.

Fashion fans are more visible - and influential - than ever before. The Met Gala - often called fashion's Super Bowl - garnered more engagement across social media and press than the actual American football championship last year, according to Launchmetrics. Just like Swifties, fashion fanatics gather online in communities and comment sections on accounts like Gvishiani's to dissect collections, magazine covers and red carpets.

I used to think I was overthinking it until I interviewed a longtime cashier who told me something fascinating: "I can tell you everything about a person just by watching them unload their cart for thirty seconds." That conversation sent me down a research rabbit hole about what our everyday behaviors reveal about us. Turns out, psychologists have been studying these micro-behaviors for years, and the way we organize our groceries at checkout is surprisingly revealing.

The reason is a lack of user research to understand how people think and act when shopping, and how they navigate their way through the experience to get it done. It's the user experience concept of a mental model, if you want to get fancy, or the application of a system matching the real-world heuristic they teach you about in college.

Retailer-owned products not being seen as a cheap alternative anymore, but instead, a way to convey luxury and exclusivity. Price-Led Positioning is No Longer Dominating UK Supermarkets. Small UK businesses are aggressively growing, with price-led positioning becoming a dated trend. It's becoming evident that brands are no longer using their own branded products as a way to be a cheap alternative.

Performance has always been the foundation of commerce media because it tied spend to measurable behavior. From sponsored search to sponsored products, the category scaled by delivering outcomes that could be directly attributed to transactions. Automation, AI-driven optimization and closed-loop measurement accelerated that model and made outcomes-based buying the norm. Outcomes still matter. But as AI reduces friction and increases competition, outcomes alone no longer create separation.

Would you like extra fries? Would you like to go large? Not all people, but I think there's definitely a large proportion of people who may feel judged in those instances, and may say no. Plus, there's really good product imagery on the terminals, so you can see the product, you can see what's in it, you can see all the other products linked to it as well. So there's that.

Speaking at Oasis Assembly, Dawn Hilarczyk, COO of Borghese, and Hillary Hutcheson, CMO of RoC Skincare, outlined how their teams are adapting to generative engine optimization, or GEO, as AI-driven search increasingly shapes product discovery. Borghese, a more than 70-year-old Italian skin-care brand known for its Fango mud treatments, and RoC, a U.S.-based mass-market clinical brand with deep ties to dermatologist recommendations, are approaching the shift from different angles.

The technology underpinning retail operations is under scrutiny in 2026 as fashion executives look to streamline systems with the aim to unlock efficiency, cut costs and meet consumer expectations for speed and personalisation in the shopping journey. At the retail event Lightspeed Edge on 12 January, Lightspeed - the unified point-of-sale (POS) and payments platform for SMEs such as Apricot Lane Boutique and Neal's Yard Remedies - convened industry leaders to explore the strategic imperative for integrated technology ecosystems over siloed systems.

American Eagle's marketing has been a lightning rod for discussion lately, but some of the apparel retailer's most experimental bets could be flying under the radar. In May, the brand launched a subscription-based Substack newsletter, Off The Cuff, with the first issues guest-edited by After School writer Casey Lewis. It may not be a Sydney Sweeney-level cultural event, but the concept speaks to how retail brands are exploring new ways to leverage creators in the chase for authenticity while trying to stay on the ball with emergent media channels.

Statistics from the 2025 holiday shopping season clearly show that AI is playing a huge role in how people shop. But new research from retail payment platform Adyen found that many consumers are ready for AI to become their personal shopper. Just over half-51%-said they're open to letting AI take over the entire shopping process, including making final purchases. Millennials are the most willing to let agents do their shopping, with nearly three in five saying they are ready for such a shift.

Markup is how much you add to your cost to get your selling price. If something costs $10 and you sell it for $15 , you added $5. That's a 50 percent markup on your cost. Where people get confused is that markup isn't the same as margin, even though the terms get used interchangeably all the time. Margin measures profit as a percentage of the selling price, and markup measures it based on your costs. Same dollar, different percentages.

Retail is no longer just about buying and selling products; it is about the experience. In a world where online shopping offers instant gratification, physical stores face the challenge of providing something the internet cannot: a personal, tactile, and efficient service. The checkout counter has traditionally been a point of friction, with long queues, slow card machines, and impersonal interactions. However, the modern Electronic Point of Sale (EPOS) system has completely reshaped this dynamic.