Wholesale / Ecommerce Archives - The Grayson Company

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 [...]

TGC2021-09-08T11:01:46-04:00

The Five Best Omni-Channel Retailers

National Real Estate Investor January 4, 2018 By Donna Mitchell As the retail industry heads into 2018, retail experts say companies like the ones listed here will find a way to master online retailing. Online retailing is often cast as an outlier threatening to decimate the traditional brick-and-mortar retail business. While industry experts no longer fear such a drastic outcome, omni-channel retailers have been making moves recently that are difficult to ignore. The U.S. Department of Commerce holds that e-commerce accounts for 9 percent of all retail purchases, according to the agency’s third quarter 2017 data. That number is expected to grow. Online sales will reach about $100 billion in 2017, predicted Ben Conwell, a senior managing director at real estate services firm Cushman and Wakefield and its e-commerce advisory group lead, during a recent webcast about 2017 holiday sales expectations. Yet retail real estate experts do not foresee an apocalypse, and [...]

TGC2018-03-26T08:55:12-04:00

Are Retailers Exploiting International Women’s Day by Urging You to Shop?

By Alexandra Mondalek | March 8, 2017 While millions of men and women across the world seize International Women’s Day as a chance to recognize the fight toward gender equality, retailers still have the bottom line in mind. Retailers — seemingly without exception — are opportunistically leveraging the day of protest to push products. People’s email inboxes were flooded this morning with mass emails, broadcasting messages of “empowerment” and inclusiveness, as well as discount codes and promotions inviting women to shop. Normally, that kind of exploitation wouldn’t ruffle feathers, but this year it directly contradicts a central goal to International Women’s Day’s “Day Without Women” strike. The strike’s organizers (who also mobilized people for the Women’s March on Washington) outline three ways women can participate: take the day off, paid and unpaid labor; wear red as an act of solidarity; and avoid shopping for one day (with exceptions for small women- and minority-owned businesses). Retailers, it seems, have largely ignored the last [...]

TGC2018-03-26T08:55:13-04:00

Overstored America: Retailers Wake Up and Work It Out

Store closings, well above the usual level of trimming retailers do annually, are expected this year. By David Moin | January 25, 2017 The shakeout has arrived. For retailers across the nation and up and down the price spectrum, 2017 will be a year of dramatic square footage reduction — and no one is being coy about it. “Brick-and-mortar retailers will evaluate store fleets relative to e-commerce and make decisions on what they believe to be the right ratio of stores to e-commerce,” Marvin Ellison, Penney’s chairman and chief executive officer, told WWD at an industry fundraiser earlier this month. It was one of those feel-good kind of evenings — 1,500 people raising $3.5 million for YMA scholarships and programs — but an undercurrent of concern over the state of retailing permeated the crowd in the ballroom of the Grand Hyatt. Consumers have more disposable cash, the stock market is hitting all-time highs, yet there [...]

TGC2018-03-26T08:55:14-04:00

HomeGoods on the March

Spitting in the eye of e-commerce, the off-price retailer strategically focuses on brick-and-mortar stores By David Gill | November 2, 2016 HomeGoods is home retailing’s new Gold Medalist. With many brick-and-mortar retailers posting up-and-down results lately—some with all down performance—the specialty operation of The TJX Cos. has maintained an upward trajectory for the past few years. Its net sales rose 31 percent to $3.9 billion from fiscal year 2014 to fiscal year 2016, which ended on Jan. 30 of this year. It reported same-store sales increases of 7 percent in 2014 and 2015, and 8 percent for 2016. Its profit rose 42 percent in that three-year time span, to $549.3 million. Contrast that with the results over the same three-year period from Bed Bath & Beyond, its closest retail rival. In the 2014-2016 fiscal span, Bed Bath’s net sales rose 5.2 percent to $12.1 billion. Net income over that period fell 18 [...]

TGC2018-03-26T08:55:14-04:00

5 Secrets to Small-Business Success at the Holidays

By Jackie Zimmermann | November 23, 2016 The doorbuster deals are set and the Black Friday ads are out, perennial indicators that the holiday shopping season is in full swing. The National Retail Federation predicts $655.8 billion in holiday sales this season, up 3.6% from 2015. In addition to securing enough working capital and inventory, you’ll want to prepare for the rush in other ways. NerdWallet asked Steve Goldberg, president of retail consulting firm The Grayson Company, for tips on how to get started. 1. Advertise early To attract early shoppers, your marketing needs to be in front of the right consumers at the right time. According to a survey by the NRF in the first week of November, 56% of respondents had already started buying gifts. But hope is not lost if you’re getting a late start, Goldberg says. Small-business owners can react more nimbly than larger stores, he says. “They can make decisions without having to [...]

TGC2018-03-26T08:55:14-04:00

Steve Goldberg discusses “6 Retail Store Design Tweaks to Boost Sales”

6 Retail Store Design Tweaks to Boost Sales Merchandise sells itself in stores with appealing entryways, intuitive paths, upscale lighting and branded signage. by: Joni Sweet Every square foot of your store has the potential to make a sale. But that doesn’t mean you should cram in as many signs and products as possible. An attractive, intuitive design and plenty of open space is more important to your bottom line. “Retail store designs are an extremely important part of today’s strategy for developing sales,” said Steve Goldberg, president of The Grayson Company, a consulting practice that works with brands and retailers. While there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to creating the perfect retail space, there are some store design principles that will influence sales across the board. Here are tweaks every shopkeeper should consider. Focus on the front Getting customers into your store depends on having a well-designed entryway, said Goldberg. “The most common mistake [...]

TGC2018-03-26T08:55:15-04:00

TGC on “Customer Service Strategies that Help Maximize Holiday Sales”

Customer Service Strategies that Help Maximize Holiday Sales By: Catherine Conlan The holiday season is make-or-break time for many retailers, hospitality employers and service companies. Perhaps your company is feeling the stress of relying on seasonal employees to generate the holiday sales you’ll need to finish the year in the black. The best way to remedy this situation is to focus on better customer service-- especially during the all-important holiday season. Chances are your competitors are already working on improving theirs. “There have been a lot of lessons learned about customer service failure,” says Steve Goldberg, President of The Grayson Company, a retail and investment consulting company in New York City. “They’re being much more careful.” Here’s how to boost your holiday sales with great customer service. Train Employees in a Scalable Way Retailers are focusing on training their holiday hires more effectively, Goldberg says. “Some of the training is virtual, and some of it is in [...]

TGC2018-03-26T08:55:15-04:00

TGC quoted in HFN article “Bed Bath Enters Tough Territory With Loyalty Program”

Bed Bath Enters Tough Territory With Loyalty Program The $29 annual membership test program offers 20 percent discounts on all orders Posted on October 13, 2016 by Allison Zisko NEW YORK—Bed Bath & Beyond’s new fee-based loyalty test program draws the specialty retailer into an increasingly crowded arena that has had mixed results with the strategy. Bed Bath & Beyond’s new annual $29 membership program offers 20 percent discounts on all orders across all of its retail platforms, according to published reports. The program is believed to be in test mode, and it is unclear whether the new fee-based program would lead to the elimination of its popular 20 percent off coupons, which are individually applied to one item. Withdrawing discounts once they are in the market is risky, noted retail analyst Steve Goldberg, president of The Grayson Company. “Altering buying patterns is always a challenge,” he told HFN. Discounts with expiration dates must also be carefully [...]

TGC2018-03-26T08:55:15-04:00

TGC at the 2016 Wharton Graduate Retail Conference

The Future of Retail and Brands is Truly Exciting!! Each year, the Wharton Graduate Retail Conference draws upon the best and brightest from the worlds of retail and brand to share their experiences and insights with Graduate students who truly represent the potential of our retail and consumer businesses. This year, Steve Goldberg, President of TGC, had the privilege to moderate a panel focused on customer loyalty through innovation. The conference also featured extraordinary leaders and entrepreneurs from retail and brands who shed light on the fundamental issues surrounding our consumer world today. Discussion topics included breakthrough technology, the concept of connecting with customers through “authentic experiences”, and the process of inventing and reinventing businesses; all of which reveal important leadership lessons of how to succeed in business in today’s hypercompetitive, multi-channel marketplace. We left the conference optimistic that the future of our brand and retail leadership is very bright indeed. So [...]

TGC2018-03-26T08:55:21-04:00

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