#retail-procurement

#retail-procurement

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

The convenience of sourcing online is fraught with more pitfalls than most of us want to admit. Try finding adequate photos of a vintage piece's condition-close-ups of the fabric, video of damaged areas, any images of a piece's rear or underside!

Sourced directly from a manufacturer, private-label brands remove one or more layers of intermediaries from the supply chain, usually distributors or other brands. A nearly identical private brand can earn more margin, even at a low price.

Previously, PR experts assumed that the CEO was the only credible media expert within the organization. That has changed. Many companies rely too heavily on their CEO for media opportunities and are underutilizing their other leaders. Also, journalists now crave experts with functional experience, especially to share use cases, implementation lessons, and adoption challenges.

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.

Marie Swift, founder and CEO of Impact Communications, said the firm also emphasizes "credibility marketing," including being quoted in reputable industry outlets, publishing bylined articles, submitting for and winning awards, issuing news releases, speaking at conferences and appearing as guests on webinars and podcasts. "Social media is an amplification tool," she said. "It should not be the primary communication tool."

Digital procurement has transformed how businesses find, evaluate and manage suppliers. Platforms are faster, data is cleaner, and decision making is more informed than ever before. Yet for all the efficiency digital tools bring, procurement still relies heavily on one timeless ingredient: human connection. Bridging the gap between digital procurement and real world supplier engagement is where the strongest partnerships are built.

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.

Surveys suggest customers want to use AI for shopping and to see AI tools from retailers. In a CI&T survey conducted in 2025, 58% of 1,040 U.S. consumers said retailers should use AI to improve the shopping experience, and almost 75% said they were already using AI tools at least occasionally in their path to purchase. In a separate survey from Gartner last March, 56% of millennials said they would be willing to let AI handle or assist with some of their shopping tasks.

You're scrolling through an online retailer, like Amazon, Shein or eBay, and spot a shirt on sale for $40. You add it to your cart, but at checkout, a $10 shipping fee suddenly appears. Frustrated, you close the tab. But what if that same shirt was priced at $50 with free shipping? The likelihood that you would have bought it without a second thought is much higher.

Intent arbitrage means capturing a buyer's interest before they even start evaluating competitors - and thanks to AI, this capability is available to every business. AI detects emerging intent by processing millions of data points and continuously monitoring intent signals, letting companies respond faster than traditional, reactive demand-generation methods. Turning early intent signals into a competitive advantage requires leadership buy-in and coordination between marketing, sales and product teams.

Given that ParkerBrand had allocated greater resources to paid media, higher performance objectives were set for 2019. Overall, the goal was to grow revenue rapidly over a short period of time whilst maintaining the return on ad spend (ROAS) to remain profitable. This translated into the following objectives: Achieve a minimum of 10:1 ROAS "Grow revenue as much as possible" from a year-on-year perspective

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.

The outlook for 2026 I'm watching 2026 with equal parts optimism and urgency. Optimism because consumer demand is still there. Retail sales have remained resilient in recent data. Urgency because the operating environment is only getting tighter. Coming out of FY2025, large retailers demonstrated resilience amid inflation pressure, shifting consumer behavior, and global supply-chain complexity. Walmart raised its outlook and leaned further into a model that blends physical stores, e-commerce scale, and execution discipline.

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.

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.