“Joanna’s Favorites” for the summer of 2021 include everything from the Bee’s Wrap Cheese Set to a $70 plywood version of the traditional plastic milk crate. “Chip’s Favorites” are much more masculine – a bluetooth speaker in duck blue and a book called How to Stay Alive in the Woods. The couple who selected these… Read More

“Closed due to lack of staff” is a sign that is following hot on the heals of “Closed due to COVID.”  Whether they are temporary or permanent, the closures due to a shortage of employees reflect yet another big challenge facing retailers and restaurants today.  Many small businesses lost their long-time staff during the months… Read More

Pandexit (n.) The final phase of a pandemic. According an article in The Cap Times by University of Wisconsin professors Malia Jones and Christine Whelan, we are entering “the messy, halting, confusing labyrinth we must navigate to get from where we are to our new normal. Pandexit is the transition period between crisis and the… Read More

Amazon’s sales topped $1 billion a day in 2020, according to Bloomberg Technology. Amazon benefited disproportionately from COVID-19 and the shift towards online sales caused by the pandemic. In fact, the Bloomberg article states that their revenue grew nearly 44% in the fourth quarter of 2020.  It goes without saying that much of this growth was at… Read More

The Monroe Street Chocolate Walk would have celebrated its 10th anniversary last year, but was one of the countless COVID cancellations. Now that vaccinations are starting to make a return to normalcy possible, stores are beginning to think about how to add the “retailtainment” element back into their marketing.  It’s time for the Monroe Street… Read More

The skyscraper-long container ship blocking the Suez Canal was finally dislodged on March 29, ending a crisis that the German insurer Allianz estimated cost up to $10 billion a day.  While it seems unlikely that anything headed for your shop was in the Ever Given’s 18,000 containers, you may well experience other container-related disruptions in this year’s… Read More

According to a recent blog post on Hootsuite, “The typical social media user now spends 2 hours and 25 minutes on social media each day, equating to roughly one waking day of their life every week. Added together, the world’s social media users will spend a total of 3.7 trillion hours on social media in… Read More

Welcome to the last week of the 30 Day Challenge for Retailers!  Unlike the Whole 30 diet, I don’t expect you to start over again if you haven’t followed through on every idea over the past three weeks.  But if you have done most of the suggestions, way to go! You’ve made lots of small… Read More

We’re halfway done with the 30 Day Challenge for Retailers! Have you found any of the activities particularly useful? If so, please post a comment on the Specialty Shop Retailing page on Facebook. And feel free to add some ideas of your own! Here are seven suggestions for the next week.  You can do them… Read More

Last week’s blog marked the start of 30 days of small changes that hopefully will make your store more successful.  If you missed the first seven days of suggestions, you can find the post (along with over 600 others!) at www.specialtyshopretailing.com. Here are this week’s seven ideas.  Feel free to add your own, and to… Read More