CAMP small footprint experiential store in NYC.

The specialty toy store void has loomed large since Toys R Us went bankrupt. No retailer has stepped in to fill the big-box toy retailer's role as the place to go for a full service toy shopping experience. In this Deep Dive article from July, one of the pieces that Retail Dive points out as missing from the Toys R Us model was a more experiential option – where families could both shop and play inside.

With that Toys R Us hole still looming large, we’ve seen others create their own niche within the toy market. Of course, the transactional toy sellers, like Target and Walmart, know they are in the business of selling toys. Period. T...

Trends to Consider for DIY Merchandising Displays

No surprise, people are DIYing more than ever. Whether upcycling old furniture, building treehouses in the backyard or adding a back porch onto their home, people have a passion for creating things with their own two hands.

The DIY movement is growing, and by 2024 could be an over 500 billion dollar industry. People are tackling bigger, more complicated projects and sharing them with their online communities. There’s a lot to digest in this DIY consumer trends report by Venveo, so we’ve chosen the 3 DIY trends we think are essential to consider for DIY merchandising and in-store custom product displays, especially for hardware and h...

Measured vs Unmeasured Results from Retail Display

As a medium, Point-of-Purchase (POP) has long had a chip on its shoulder. Marketers, retailers and producers know that it moves product, but it’s never been considered a “measured medium” by the advertising community. As brands and retailers strive to connect with shoppers, in store remains a top performer – shoppers have missed in store shopping! In the first two quarters of 2021, in-store shopping jumped by 28.5%.

With the increase in shopper confidence, it’s no secret that brands and retailers seek a return on their advertising and promotion investments. To both our clients and us, the measure of any medium is ...

For lighting brands, in-store displays for light fixtures and other home products create an interesting challenge. How do you present materials in isolation that eventually become a piece in someone’s broader home décor? You need to show consumers the potential your lighting product has to elevate their space – and brighten it too.

We’ve seen many successful examples of lighting product display, and they tend to do three things:
• The paint the picture of how a lighting product looks in the home
• They create a mini-showroom for consumers to experience the product in real time
• They help build the consumer’s trust right there in the store

Let’s...

One of the Big Questions coming out of the Year of Covid has been: Will shoppers return to shopping in stores? The presumption has been that shoppers have adopted more online shopping practices and won’t want to give up the convenience of having their groceries picked & packed for curbside pickup (BOPIS) and having their apparel, books, dogfood, sporting goods, etc delivered to their front porches.

The US Census Bureau tracks online v in-store buying. Their Q4 report shows that online sales for all of 2020 were 14.0% of total retail, up from 11.0% in 2019. Now, that’s quite a leap, for sure, but I’d have predicted the number was even greater, perhaps pushing 20%.

Turns out, s...

Is your light display providing the best customer experience?

Spring is just around the corner, which means spring cleaning and a fresh look for home and office spaces.

We all saw that the effects of 2020 did not slow the real estate industry. With mortgage interest rates at an all-time low, many U.S. consumers are purchasing and moving into new homes. Lighting fixtures are often an easy, cost-effective way to update a space or make a new space your own.

As consumers shop for light fixtures this spring, how can you ensure the best possible customer experience when they look at your lighting products? Can shoppers easily search and find the best fixtures for their spaces in your showroom? How wi...

Those words strike fear or excitement into the heart of a reader, don’t they?

“What if I quit my job, honey?”

“What if we buy instead of renting?”

“What if the doctor gives me bad news?”

As a business, we think in What If terms all of the time. What if we win this major account and need to add to the team? What if our largest client stops buying? What if the bank won’t loan us the funds to expand? What if we have a fire or a flood? What if we invest in this new piece of equipment?

We also participate in the What Ifs that our clients bring us.

“What if we give you the order today, Tusco? Can you deliver it fast enough?”

“What if we ma...

Integrating Seamless Ecommerce

Ecommerce demand has been growing among consumers for years, that’s no secret. But the Covid pandemic has certainly exploded the buy online pick up in store (BOPIS). Some retailers, such as Kohl’s and Lowe’s, had begun to integrate these options into their offerings even prior to Covid and capitalized on this innovation swiftly at the onset of shutdowns. Lowe’s, having made significant investments in their technology and Ecommerce offerings in 2019, was poised to use these innovations to bolster their market standings. But how do these big boxes take advantage of Ecommerce while also supporting their physical stores? They create a frictio...

Touchless Technology Leads to Frictionless Experiences

The Covid pandemic has accelerated timelines for many pieces of the retail sector. Notably through the integration of more technology in the realm. Many innovations have been years in development but have only recently garnered shopper support during the pandemic. The concept of the Amazon Go stores seemed far fetched and absurd when they were first announced and now consumers are looking for ways to avoid unnecessary contact with surfaces.

Cashless Checkouts

One of the largest changes has been the shift to cashless payment options. CNBC reports that 51% of adults are now using some form of contactless payment – from tap to pay card t...

GameStop - Reinventing the Retail Model

GameStop and other publicly traded stocks like AMC Theaters, Bed Bath & Beyond, BlackBerry, Koss, Nokia, and Tootsie Roll have seen huge run-ups in values due to speculation by investors. To be clear, this isn’t actual investing; it’s a form of gambling that the stock price will go up or down immediately, based on what other investors do, not whether the underlying business is a good bet.

Of course, business is always a gamble: Will people buy what I want to sell? Can I make a profit? Can I compete successfully? There are no guarantees in stock investing nor the businesses people invest in.

Shifting Focus

Gaming has shifted to downloadable cont...