Normally, retailers and brands would be executing well-established plans to master Back to School (BTS). Merchandise is ordered and in transit. Sales and promotions are planned. For obvious reasons, this year will be wildly different than usual. Will kids be in school or at home? Will colleges operate online or in-person or follow a hybrid model? Will fewer college-aged students actually go away to school vs taking a gap year? Many unknowns persist. Then again, we’re only 90 days since the economy tanked and we’re still 60 days away from the start of school. Much remains uncertain.

We suspect that shoppers will seek some semblance of normalcy in buying new apparel – kids gro...

Do you have a favorite store for your general grocery shopping? What about when you “just need to grab a couple things?” Are they different places? Is one more convenient but more expensive? Why do you choose one retailer over another? Your personal answers will vary, but we can all admit that we rank those shops when we’re considering where we are taking our dollars.

The American Marketing Association posits that where we shop often depends on the type of trip we are making. Are you on your regular restock trip, filling in items for tonight’s dinner, or making an unplanned stop during the day? These types of trips are the most common for the general consumer, and they...

Stores are reopening across the country and consumers are looking for the sense of normalcy that comes with it. At our local mall, stores were permitted to open at their own pace, leading to disappointed shoppers when their favorite stores were not open when they expected. One main source of contention was the opening of the Marshalls discount retailer – with a vocal group on social media speculating on the reopening date after their disappointment in the delay. On the date of reopening, eager shoppers were wrapped around the corner of the building awaiting their turn to get into the store.

But what does a shopper NEED at Marshalls? I always approach a trip to Marshalls as I HOPE I will...

Arnold Schwarzenegger made the phrase famous in Terminator. The American shopper will eventually make it a reality for retailers, too.

US retail took a body blow in March. Sales dropped 8.7%, then went on a ventilator as April sales plummeted another 16.4% - the biggest one-month drop ever measured. With non-essential stores shuttered and 30M+ Americans newly unemployed, this surprised no one. May results should be moderately better as states loosened some restrictions but things will remain ugly for months to come.

Even when all stores are permitted to resume operations, physical distancing, more limited occupancy, and shopper reluctance will keep sales tamped down. Some stores will never reo...

With the continued use of social distancing recommendations across the country, stores turn to technology to track their capacity and maintain safe levels of occupancy in their stores. At one local Lowes’ Home Improvement Store, employees stationed at the entrance and exit of the store are using a smartphone app to track how many people enter and exit. Stores are reducing their access points so that multiple entrances are no longer being used by customers.

Kroger is relying on technology that it began to implement over a decade ago to cut checkout wait times and monitor customer flow. Kroger’s QueVision technology allows the company to track shopper trends and monitor the flow of ...

With COVID-19 top of mind for Americans and others around the world, retail has shifted from in-store to online, for everything outside of essential needs. But what is an essential need? Businesses are being shuttered by state and local governments based on the Department of Homeland Security’s definition of an essential business. Grocery stores, health care, law enforcement and financial services are entities that immediately come to mind. These pieces of our daily lives all rely on different support organizations, such as manufacturing and agriculture to continue to operate.

It’s hard to take into consideration all the levels that go into supporting an essential business and fil...

States around the US and countries around the world are currently easing restrictions from their once shuttered state due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Global economy has taken a hit. We have seen an increase in online ordering from your general non-perishables to everyday groceries. As shoppers cautiously return to stores, retailers will need to gain their shoppers’ trust and attention to make them the preferred choice.

A new normal has been set for how consumers are shopping. From wearing a mask in the store to carrying a pack of sanitizing wipes with them, consumers are approaching in-person shopping very differently from their traditional trips to the store. When the stay at home...

The ghost of Christmas future may scare Ebenezer Scrooge, but retailers and brands fear something else—the Ghost of Fewer Shopping Days. About every six years, the Ghost of Fewer Shopping Days appears, and this is one of those years. With US Thanksgiving falling on November 28th, there will only be 27 days between then and Christmas. This compares unfavorably with 2018 when there were 32 days.

If it seems like you see holiday promotions appearing sooner and more pervasively than last year, you are not mistaken. We will also see more retailers offering Black Friday deals days, even weeks, before November 29th. We had fixtures going into Victoria’s Secret and May Department Stores i...

For over 70 years, Tusco Display has designed, engineered, and produced custom store fixtures for many of the world’s best-known brands. From American Greetings to Apple, Goodyear to GE, Michelin to M&M Mars, Owens Corning to Osram Sylvania, Newell Rubbermaid to Nike, Primo Water to Polaris, our work has been found in every retail format in North America. While we are proud to work with these giants, some of our best work has been for brands that aren’t household names. Big name or just big dreams, we have poured ourselves into the work of converting in-store browsers into buyers.

As you’d imagine, how we do this has changed since 1949. Our design, engineering, and manufactu...

Oct 1 every year represents the start of Major League Baseball’s second season: the playoffs. Though the Cleveland Indians failed to make it this year, I’m still a fan of the team and the sport.

Baseball offers useful metaphors for what we do. At Tusco, we help our clients make the team (retail placement), step up to the plate (get noticed by shoppers), and get on base (make a sale). Do they sell to every shopper? Nope. Babe Ruth didn’t hit every pitch either.

Baseball is a numbers game and so is in-store marketing. Not every shopper is a good prospect for any one client. And Tusco isn’t the right fit for every marketer either. We use the Tusco DARE Process:

• Discover wha...