TGC

About TGC

Unparalleled Experience & Expertise in the Retail and Consumer Industries TGC offers a full range of consulting services to retail, digital / e-commerce, wholesale and omni-channel businesses, as well as investment firms focused on the consumer sector. Our team brings best of breed resources to bear on every functional area of retail and consumer businesses. Founded in 1992, TGC’s team is made up of successful retail and consumer industry executives who draw on their deep experience and expertise to provide best-in-class consulting services to our clients. The team shares an obsession with delivering measurable results to our clients quickly and with high payback on the investment in our engagements.

Dash Design Transformative Hotel Project

Congratulations to our design partner, Dash Design, on this inspiring and transformative hotel project in the heart of NYC. To watch the complete video click this link Dash Design.   Following is more information about the Dash Design Delta Hotel project.   Delta Hotel, nestled in Times Square, debuts as the brand's inaugural NYC location after a $40 million transformation from Staybridge Suites. The 32-floor tower's overhaul included converting 310 extended-stay rooms, revamping the ground floor with a new reception, bar, and restaurant named George’s Nephew, plus renovating the lower lobby. Strategically situated for convenience amid bustling gateways, the hotel embodies Delta's "Simple Made Perfect" ethos, offering guests a serene retreat in midtown Manhattan. Rooms showcase minimalist design within a compact footprint, promoting efficiency and relaxation. Overcoming design challenges, the hotel seamlessly merges beauty and functionality, embodying neighborhood artistry.

2024-01-30T12:14:15-05:00

The Grayson Company Turns 30

Celebrating our 30th year as a retail strategy consulting firm, I want to take a moment to express my sincere appreciation for your support. Over the past three decades, we have focused on bringing our clients fact-based, data-driven, actionable solutions and perspectives that are practical, objective, and global.  At TGC, we provide our clients the most experienced industry experts to tackle the most difficult challenges faced by omnichannel retailers, digital natives, vertical brands, and investors around the world. Despite the ups and downs of the industry, we have been able to grow and expand our business, a testament to our business model and our incredible team.  With offices in New York and Los Angeles, our reach extends to twenty-six countries across the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Our talented team is distinguished by their deep, hands-on experience and their ability to adapt to the industry's rapidly changing landscape.  David Ball, our President, and [...]

2023-04-05T18:51:05-04:00

Farm Rio’s US Retail Strategy

TGC recently sat down with Daniel Martinez, Farm Rio’s Global Retail Director to discuss his new role, the current state of the business and the US retail strategy that TGC developed with the Farm Rio team. Farm Rio, a vertically integrated Brazilian apparel company that designs, produces, and markets colorful print garments inspired by its local cultural and environmental roots, was founded in 1997 by Marcello Bastos and Katia Barros. In 2010, it became part of the newly created Grupo Soma, a multi-brand company which has grown to be one of the largest apparel groups in Brazil. The brand began planning for its US debut in 2018 and a year later opened a store in the SoHo section of New York and then one north of Miami in Aventura Mall, along with a few experimental pop-up stores in select markets. Within a year of opening stores, COVID hit. Against all odds, Farm [...]

2022-11-03T07:21:11-04:00

Honesty Is The Best Policy

TGC’s President David Ball speaks with Time Magazine. Dave Horesh always liked the nice round prices on his company’s website: $25, $50, $100 for custom-made fabric banners and pennants in a rainbow array of felts. But by October, vendors for materials like thread, felt, ink and brass grommets had raised prices multiple times in the course of the year, turning a “slow drip” of increased costs into a troubling conundrum. So co-founder Horesh and the rest of his team at Oxford Pennant finally agreed: those nice round numbers were going to have to change. “When you get the right margins, you can absorb a 5% increase here, if the cost of thread goes up by 4%, whatever,” he says from his converted-attic office at his home a mile-and-a-half from his company’s factory in Buffalo, New York. “But when it happens across your entire supply chain, you can only resist it so long.” For small business owners like Horesh, [...]

2021-12-29T09:13:43-05:00

TGC’s David Ball, speaks to NRF about “fintechs” financial services

NRF Article written by Karen Kroll   While many retailers have long offered credit cards, a growing number are providing a wider range of financial services, often partnering with a financial technology company (“fintech”) to make the shift. The goal, says WSL Strategic Retail CEO Wendy Liebmann, is “to build loyalty when shoppers are buying anywhere and everywhere.” In January 2021, Walmart announced a partnership with fintech investment firm Ribbit Capital. The venture, Walmart said, would bring together Walmart’s retail knowledge and scale with Ribbit’s fintech expertise, and deliver tech-driving financial experiences for Walmart’s customers and employees.   Driving customer engagement At the same time, the fintech sector — which combines expertise in financial services, software development and network operations — seeks greater access to customers, says David Ball, president of retail consultant The Grayson Company. “Digital retailers and fintech firms are developing increasingly intertwined ecosystems,” he says.   New skills and technology [...]

2021-10-21T10:40:42-04:00

Apparel Retailers Tread Carefully In Fragile Recovery

Apparel retailers are scrambling to capture returning sales unleashed by pent-up demand, even as they brace for challenges ahead. The past 12 to 18 months have been tough for clothing and accessories sales. For apparel to be meaningful and necessary, people have to be going places, and that certainly wasn’t the case during much of the pandemic. Instead of dressing to go to the office, school or dinner, a majority of the population opted for stretchy waistbands, casual comfort and sports apparel. “In going through the pandemic, people recalibrated what was important, and apparel fell way off the map," noted Kevin Mullaney, CEO of The Grayson Co., a retail consulting firm. . The outlook for apparel sales brightened in the first quarter as vaccinations rolled out, businesses began reopening and consumers got out of their homes and started spending. According to a July report from the U.S. Census Bureau, seasonally adjusted sales at [...]

2021-09-21T11:30:50-04:00

Ten brands founded 10 years ago and how they’ve succeeded

David Ball speaks with the NRF about the success of 10 brands founded 10 years ago. Tin and aluminum are traditional gifts for couples celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary. While perhaps not as glamourous as crystal (reserved for 15 years) or bronze (eight years), these materials embody pliability and strength. Retailers who make it to their 10 -year anniversary also have had to draw on these qualities. Many of the brands that launched in 2011 and continue to thrive reinvented prevailing business models. Most embraced the growing range of commerce: ecommerce, mobile commerce, re-commerce and social commerce, often along with bricks-and-mortar stores. While their products and customer bases differ, a few themes are common. They’re digital and direct-to-consumer By going directly to consumers, these brands can bypass many middlemen, says David Ball, president of consulting firm The Grayson Company. As digitally native vertical brands, the companies typically address at least one of [...]

2021-09-08T11:01:46-04:00

Riders on the Storm

Riders on the Storm:  How Retailers Can Proactively Plan for the New Normals of Extreme Weather by, our partner, Evan Gold of Planalytics Over the past several decades, tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific oceans have experienced an increase in terms of the overall occurrences, as well as size and intensity. Combine this with the number of retail stores (and population) who live in hurricane and flood prone areas, and you will note the significant risk and exposure that retailers have from extreme weather events. While we can not control the weather, there are a number of things retailers can do to proactively plan for, and react to extreme weather events. Measure First, then Manage. The first step is to have a foundational understanding of the risk and exposure to weather. Analytics can help quantify the financial impacts weather has on product demand as well as store traffic [...]

2020-08-19T10:28:27-04:00

It’s what they say when you are not in the room that matters most…

Imagine conducting a focus group on your brand with over a million people who didn't know they were in a focus group Unbiased insights Unaided responses Cold hard truth Using digital audits, we capture and process millions of data points using artificial intelligence applications like text analytics and machine learning to extract meaningful, actionable insights from unstructured text in social media   TGC Social Listening ---- CLICK HERE  

2020-02-28T16:20:03-05:00

Congratulations US Polo Assn.!

TGC is extremely excited that our client and partner US Polo Assn. is supporting the hottest brothers band on the planet!  Their European tour, hitting key cities like London, Berlin, Milan and Paris, highlights the US Polo Assn.'s  new Spring 20’ Malibu Beach commercial where sport, fashion and music collide!  Congratulations! Please view the commercial  

2020-02-26T10:52:59-05:00

Get in Touch

We would be happy to discuss how we might be of assistance to your business. Do not hesitate to call or send us an e-mail if you'd like to speak in more detail about any of the services we provide.

Phone: 212.661.6262
Email: inquiry@thegraysoncompany.com
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