Many retail workers saw big changes in their jobs during the pandemic, as stores enacted new sanitation and safety protocols while ramping up services like online shopping and curbside pickup. Now retailers need to think about what kind of employees they will need in the future, and how they will find and keep them. Deloitte
Sales of CBD products are expected to get pretty high in the next few years, even if users of the products don’t. A new forecast from the cannabis research firm BDSA predicts that U.S. sales of CBD products will hit $19.5 billion in 2025, rising at a compound annual growth rate of nearly 37%. (For
The ways that people can shop for products and get them home are multiplying so fast that hardly anyone involved in the process can keep up. That was one of the takeaways from a virtual panel discussion on the future of same-day delivery at the National Retail Federation’s recent Retail Converge conference. Kelly Caruso, the
Economic recovery and the prospect of strong retail sales growth were the headline topics at the National Retail Federation’s inaugural State of Retail and the Consumer event earlier this month. But a panel of retail leaders at the event also discussed how their companies intend to deal not just with the economic opportunity ahead, but
Walmart has been America’s largest retailer since 1990, when it surpassed Sears to take the top spot. Retail historians have described Sears as the Amazon of its day, since it pioneered shopping from home long before there was an internet, distributing its “Big Book” catalog by mail to millions of rural Americans with limited access
With the accelerating rollout of vaccines offering reason to hope that the COVID-19 pandemic may soon end and allow life to return to normal again, the question is, what will normal look like? For retailers and their suppliers, that question is normally framed around whether or not consumers will snap back to their pre-2020 shopping
The COVID-19 pandemic has been bad for America and bad for many American businesses, but the end finally appears to be in sight. President Biden has said all adults will be eligible for vaccination no later than May 1, and this month he signed a $1.9 billion COVID-19 relief bill that should give the economy
Although mostly filmed on a Hollywood sound stage, the ’90s sitcom “Mad About You” managed to convincingly evoke the New York City of that era. So it was shocking to watch it the other day and see the main characters bringing their groceries home in paper bags. Were New Yorkers really using paper grocery bags
WASHINGTON — Thomas Wolff famously wrote “you can’t go home again,” and FMI president and chief executive officer Leslie Sarasin said Tuesday that food retailers will face a similar reality when the COVID-19 pandemic finally ends. “There simply is no going back to the normal we knew before the pandemic,” she said. “We’ve changed, the
The COVID-19 pandemic that upended life in 2020 shows no signs of relenting just because a new year and new vaccines have arrived. And while spring and summer are expected to move us in the direction of normal life, there remains the question of what that version of normal will look like. Two new reports
The arrival of a new year can be a time for hope, and that is especially true as the world puts 2020 in its rear view mirror. The approval of two COVID-19 vaccines, with more potentially on the way, will likely mark the beginning of the end for a pandemic that shook the U.S. economy,
Retailers have been among the essential businesses Americans have relied on to help them get through the COVID-19 pandemic, and much of the credit goes to the frontline employees working in the stores. Their efforts will be more important than ever in the coming weeks. Despite the encouraging news that vaccines are on the way,