Liza Amlani’s Post

Sharing a great event for women in the retail tech world. Whether you work for a brand, a tech solution or looking for inspiration … join Shannon Flanagan and an amazing group of Retail Women in Tech on Friday, July 12. Register below 🙌🏽

Most sports talk shows stink. There are notable exceptions: Inside the NBA, Pardon the Interruption and First Things First. First Things First is surging in popularity because of the chemistry between the three hosts and their plethora of running gags. One such gag is when Chris Broussard describes the outcome of a home team getting beaten by an away team as the equivalent of someone coming to your house, kicking up their feet on the table and taking food from your fridge. If Broussard has been reading the The Wall Street Journal lately, he might use his comedic schtick to comment on the following story… Nike has apparently “missed the running boom” while brands like On, HOKA, and ASICS Corporation have capitalized on it. One way these competitors are winning over runners has been to show up in Portland, OR and engage with the running community in Nike’s backyard. Reps from those competing brands reportedly show up more frequently than those from Nike. Runners comment that Nike doesn’t dominate run culture like it once did. As companies aggressively market on the ground, they can make a move when a runner wants to try something new. Seems like the home team is having their fridge raided. Or are they? Nike’s sales clocked in at $51 Billion in 2023 while competitors like New Balance and ON hit $6.5 billion and (almost) $2 billion respectively. So, there shouldn’t be much to worry about. And therein lies the issue. Open up your copy of Shoe Dog and find the section where Phil Knight writes: “Some banker, creditor, or competitor may try to stop me, but they’re going to have to bleed to do it.” It doesn’t seem like competitors today have to sweat all that much, let alone bleed, to take market share. Continue the read here: https://lnkd.in/eeFpWawJ #retail #retailnews #TheMerchantLife #TRE #TopRetailExpert #NIKE #footwear Raj Dhiman

Well this just got interesting 🤔 A few thoughts: 🔸Luxury sales are declining. What could this mean for the future of luxury and DTC? 🔸 What will this mean for Saks 🇨🇦 that has seen a significant drop in sales, footfall and relevance. 🔸 Will Hudson's Bay Company finally be divested and sold off? 🔸 Will Amazon’s success have any impact on improving Saks and NM operations/supply chain? 🔸 How will buying power be impacted in merchandising? 🔸 Will any functions or teams be combined since many brands across stores overlap? 🔸 Salesforce also threw in some cash to assist in the adoption of AI. Saks Fifth Avenue Neiman Marcus Group Amazon Suzanne Kapner Lauren Thomas The Wall Street Journal Salesforce #retail #retailnews #fashion #luxury #stores #departmentstores

The story of the brand Outdoor Voices is riddled with ineptness. Their journey from hyped athletic apparel brand to raging dumpster fire is well documented. In short, its another example of a DTC brand acting as if fundraising is something to be proud of versus building a profitable business. Retail fundamentals were lacking, leadership isolated the brand from its customers and vendors were not getting paid. (Wait, vendors were not getting paid? They raised money, no??) In May, Consortium Brand Partners bought the remnants of Outdoor Voices, after the brand closed its stores and fired corporate staff. This ain’t the first and it ain’t the last story of a DTC brand following a similar trajectory. But, of course, there are DTC brands that are successful. And, part of that success comes from the skillful creation of wholesale partnerships. The value of these comes from reducing acquisition costs and accessing new customer segments that are out of reach with a “direct-only” approach. We figured we would bring out our tips for DTC brands looking to increase their wholesale presence. I present to you our 6 “Wholesale-ism’s.” Continue the read here: https://lnkd.in/eW3Jd_Pu #retail #retailing #wholesale #DTC #stores #ecommerce #TRE #TopRetailExpert #TheMerchantLife

What an amazing day spent with the WOC Retail Alliance® board! Thank you to our amazing leaders for bringing us together on a mission to transform the industry. Visit us at www.wocretailalliance.org to learn more. Be sure sign up for event and networking updates and connect with us on LinkedIn. You don’t want to miss out! 🔸MISSION To ensure that women of color have opportunities to thrive and succeed in the retail industry. 🔸VISION Women of color elevated. C-suite diversified. Industry transformed. Shoutouts to: Kimberly Lee Minor, Bernardine Wu, Christiane Pendarvis, Karen Cho, Monica Chadha, Jennifer Peterson, Lauren Yoon, Ilka Jordan, Lydia Smith, MBA, Michelle Toledo and our newest board member Jason McNary. #retail #retailleaders #womenofcolor #wocra

As a GOOD AMERICAN customer, I can’t wait to experience the store. 👖As a former merchant, having a digital option to showcase styling, fit and product knowledge would have given me the confidence that my merchandising strategy was being executed in the store without having to physically be on location. 📺This is a great way to make sure teams are product obsessed with the constant graphics and that the visual merchandising / styling options are being showcased at the store. 🛍️To make sure this extension of digital is a success, Good American would need to keep the content fresh and consistent with real time inventory and reflective of the current product assortment. Sales associates would still need to be product obsessed but they would also need to show customers what is possible with the digital screens. The experience should augment and assist the sales associate and not be considered a replacement of staff. 🔹The excitement of finding a product on the screen, loving the look and being disappointed if the item or the size is not available could also drive customers away. GA would need to be on top of their inventory position and have a good handle of managing their inventory across all channels. 🗞️Check out more #BrainTrust comments on RetailWire: https://lnkd.in/eDJp--GF #retail #retailnews #goodamerican #cx #stores #merchandising #TRE #TopRetailExpert

Here’s your science lesson of the day c/o The Merchant Life 🗞 : In Chemistry there is such a thing as an “Equilibrium Law.” It is more commonly referred to as Le Chatelier’s principle, named after the French chemist Henry Louie Le Chatelier. The formal definition of the principle is: If a system is at equilibrium and an outside stress is placed on the system, then the system responds in such a way to counteract the effect of that stress. In layman’s terms: If you disturb a system, the system always kicks back. Turns out that in retail, processes and systems also kick back. Consider this scenario: Brands have an assortment comprised of seasonless or core/basic items and new fashion items. The seasonless stuff is evergreen in the assortment, while the fashion stuff catches the eye of the customer. So, if fashion is what draws attention, then brands go all in on fashion. But, this leads to overdevelopment and over-assorting products. This in turn leads to excess inventory, markdowns and losing out on margin. Eventually, the system kicks back. SKU’s are cut, open-to-buy budgets are reduced, and inventories are right-sized. However, the assortments are scaled back to the point where they start to be perceived as bland and boring. The system kicks back again. Time to ramp up the fashion part of the assortment to gain relevance. You can see the conundrum here. When the assortment is bland and doesn’t sell, brands create more stuff. When stuff doesn’t sell, they cut it back down. The system always kicks back. And, it does so in a predictable way: when a new leader or creative director arrives. Continue the read of The Merchant Life edition here with a 🔊 to Coach: https://lnkd.in/eiN79_b4 #retail #assortmentplanning #fashion #merchandising #TRE #TopRetailExpert Tapestry

�� The latest episode of The Robin Report's Retail Unwrapped is now live. Thank you Shelley and Robin for having me on the show! Succession planning is something every leader should be planning for. Retail fundamentals play a big part in building a leader that is well rounded and who understands the retail business from end to end. A few things we covered: ➡ PepsiCo's secret to success in building it's CEO factory. ➡ The sales floor to c-suite pipeline in retail doesn't exist anymore. ➡ The garden analogy. Tune in today: https://lnkd.in/e6ShjDdw #retail #retailnews #leadership #stores #TRE #TopRetailExpert #TheMerchantLife

My take on HOKA's magic in the latest from Nicole and Inside Retail US: 👟HOKA has been getting it right for some time now. Gaining a following of fashion lovers as well as customers looking for a great performance shoe allowed HOKA to accelerate their piece of the pie aka the performance footwear market. 👟Opening the NYC flagship store with activations that drive an interesting customer experience will keep that customer coming back, allowing HOKA to be a force to be reckoned with across the footwear giants. 👟The reality is that HOKA is a great performance shoe. HOKA's strategy is to continue to innovate to expand their product mix so the assortment is always evolving and improving. 👟With comfort playing an important role in fashion, HOKA has had great success in wholesale with accounts like Nordstrom. They have leveraged their wholesale strategy to inform their own retail product mix and are going to market with winners. 👟The icing on the cake is the product obsessed sales associates who believe they are selling the best to their customers. Read Nicole's full article here along with comments from my friend Neil Saunders: https://lnkd.in/erxmiH9U #retail #retailnews #footwear #sneakers #stores #fashion #innovation #TRE #TopRetailExpert #TheMerchantLife Deckers Brands