A mascot for Alibaba’s online shopping site Tmall urges customers to buy on Singles Day.
AP Photo/Ng Han Guan
Chinese customers spend billions on Nov. 11. Why, and what does it mean for the global retail marketplace?
The Sears catalog made it easier for anyone to live the American dream.
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Sears and other department stores not only changed how Americans consumed but altered the very nature of society and culture as well.
Doomed to fail?
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In almost every city, consumer demand and business diversity had a big role to play.
Do you distrust the companies that profit from the goods and services you buy? Research suggests most of us do.
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Research shows that consumers don’t like it when businesses make money. Why?
It’s tempting to design your own shoes, but it takes time.
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For a while Shoes of Prey could do no wrong. So what happened?
Reacting to what you buy, then predicting what you want to buy.
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Artificial intelligence can detect patterns in your shopping behaviour that can help retailers deliver better deals to you, and then suggest things you never even knew you wanted.
Online prices drive offline prices.
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The mere possibility of online competition is restraining prices offline.
Our collections are a part of us and our life story, and the act of collecting holds a certain comfort.
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Retailers have cleverly tapped into the psychological need many of us have to collect, in some cases, mundane everyday items.
What is the future of retail?
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Specific predictions go obsolete fast, but some common themes are emerging – convenience, fragmentation, intelligence, personalisation and experience.
There was an implicit financial exchange between parties.
AAP
The strong reaction to plastic bag bans is because consumers feel supermarkets violated an unspoken agreement.
As seen on a high street near you.
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The challenges facing town centres and high streets are intensifying.
Supermarkets are stocking more of their own brands even as they shrink stores.
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Supermarkets and consumers might gain from more private label brands, but Australian suppliers are likely to lose out.
Woolworths has already announced it will open more smaller stores.
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Several large retailers and supermarkets have announced they are going to downsize to smaller stores.
Despite closures, there’s still room for real life shopping.
Imran's Photography / Shutterstock.com
Bricks and mortar stores can play a crucial component in the future of retail.
An unhealthy diet is now the leading preventable risk factor for disease globally.
Mavis Wong/The Conversation NY-BD-CC
New technologies do not discriminate between the promotion of a healthy or unhealthy diet. It’s how we apply them that matters.
It’s quiet – too quiet.
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Across the US and the UK, major brick and mortar retailers are battling the effects of e-commerce – and town centres could be the next casualties.
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South Africa needs to harness its service sector into an innovative and export orientated way to push back poverty, unemployment and inequality.
Will there be fewer of these on Australian doorsteps?
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Amazon has barred Australian shoppers from its US site, rather than contend with new GST rules on overseas purchases. But don’t expect a stampede at your local branch of Harvey Norman as a result.
What does a machine see when it looks at you?
Jessica Ridgway
When people see their bodies in 3D, they feel worse about themselves and more negative in general. That might not put shoppers in a buying mood even for clothes that fit better.
A man smokes a large marijuana joint during the annual 4/20 marijuana celebration on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on April 20, 2018. With legalization ahead, provinces are taking different approaches in how they sell weed to the public.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
Canadian provinces are choosing various approaches to cannabis sales as legalization approaches. Ontario’s will combine aspects of computer stores, wine boutiques and post-prohibition liquor outlets.