As traditional retail continues to flail, brick-and-mortar chains are looking everywhere for a remedy. Sears is the most recent company to address a very big problem with a small solution, planning to open smaller format specialty stores, while closing down larger locations. Can expansion-via-compression turn...
Specialty retailers, by definition, cater to a niche consumer group. But when one finds itself in a struggling market — such as the mall-based, teen-centric chain Hot Topic currently does — is readjusting to reach a wider audience, while counting on maintaining the core group,...
Can specialty retail sometimes be too special for its own good? Even if so, that’s not the case for physical video rental stores, which — in specific areas of the U.S., catering to a specific type of consumer — outlasted chains like Blockbuster and continue...
Retail is dead, right? Wrong. Consumers are, in fact, spending...the problem is that many of the industry prognosticators aren’t aware of it, because they’re looking in old-fashioned places -- where you won’t find the millennial shopper.
