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Global Retailers Bring Inclusive Products to the Front

In: Retailing Tips|Last Updated: June 28, 2022

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) has become a key phrase for the roaring 2020s, as the world wakes up to accepting and welcoming people of every race, color, gender, religion, and sexuality.

In retail, we’re seeing that play out both in the products on shelves and the sourcing practices of retailers.

Target’s focus

Target’s focus on diversity is not going unnoticed. Last year the retail giant pledged it will spend more than $ 2 billion with Black-owned businesses by 2025 and now carries more than 500 Black-owned business brands in stores and online, already ahead of its goal.

This “includes everything from investing in underrepresented entrepreneurs and launching Black-owned brands on our shelves, to working with Black designers and suppliers,” LaKesha Brown, a Target spokesperson, told RangeMe.

Target also has a Forward Founders program, designed to engage entrepreneurs, particularly Black founders, early in their startup journeys by helping them navigate critical stages of bringing a brand to market, including ideation, product development, and scaling for mass retail. More than 2,000 founders have attended the virtual program since it launched.

Target carries more than 500 Black-owned business brands in stores and online

Target carries more than 500 Black-owned business brands in

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Upcycled Food and Beverages Are on the up and Up

In: Retailing Tips|Last Updated: June 24, 2022

Our grandmothers did it really well: Taking leftover foods and turning them into something else. Scraps of vegetables and animal bones made stock; leftover bread turned into bread pudding; croutons became breadcrumbs.

What’s old is new again and companies are following grandma’s lead. And now it’s got a new fancy name: Upcycling. Upcycling means taking food that would otherwise be wasted and turning it into something new. It also means, hopefully, that the 1.3 billion tons of food that is wasted every year, according to the Food & Agriculture Association, will be reduced.

America’s upcycled industry was estimated at $ 46.7 billion in 2019, according to the Financial Times and by this year, more than 160 products from 37 companies are Upcycled Certified by the Upcycled Food Association (UFA), Greenwood Village, Colo.

Upcycling is gaining traction, especially with the environmentally minded, but even big companies are getting in on the action. Anheuser Busch is building two facilities, in the U.S. and Belgium, to process barley, which would otherwise be discarded or fed to cattle, to sell to companies like Nestle.

The greatest solution

Upcycling means doing more with less and protecting the planet at the same time. According to Project …

Loyalty Programs: Personalization Is the Key To Keeping Shoppers Interested

In: Retailing Tips|Last Updated: June 20, 2022

Inflation in the U.K. is through the roof, and prices in grocery stores are rising along with it. As shoppers look for the lowest prices and are ready to shop around at different stores, loyalty programs are becoming key to retaining consumers.

Loyalty programs are popular in the U.K., where 65% of the population is signed up with a supermarket scheme. These programs lead to more loyal customers since 47% say they spend more with the supermarket whose program they belong to, according to the Data and Marketing Association in London.

Britain’s various supermarket loyalty schemes run the gamut from Lidl’s, which offers limited-time coupons; to Morrisons, which sends personalized money-off offers to shoppers; to Sainsbury’s, whose Nectar scheme lets customers gain one point per £1 they spend to save on groceries or with partner brands. Users also receive limited time offers, based on what they most frequently buy. Many Brits sign up to a grocery store’s loyalty program in order to get rewards from a partner brand, such as Tesco (partners include Disney+, Pizza Express) and Waitrose (partners with John Lewis department store).

Grocery store loyalty programs in the U.S. are similar, offering coupons, which are often personalized, fuel …

Inclusivity Over Profit: How To Show Support for LGBTQ+ Brands Beyond Pride Month

In: Retailing Tips|Last Updated: June 16, 2022

In June, many brands show their support for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ+) community with rainbow-colored merchandise, community partnerships, artist collaborations, proceeds donations, and more. Perhaps you have seen Lego’s Everyone is Awesome set or Skittles’ Pride Pack sitting on retailers’ shelves. However, while the intention to bring awareness to the LGBTQ+ community and celebrate Pride month may be genuine, these can quickly be perceived as ill-hearted marketing tactics known as “rainbow washing.”

What is rainbow washing?

What is rainbow washing? It’s when a brand uses Pride colors to indicate their support of the LGBTQ+ community without taking any real action. Sentiment quickly falls flat for brands who simply swap out logos on social media during June and can backfire if consumers believe a retailer’s colorful products are released with the sole intention of boosting sales.

Younger generations are quick to call out brands that aren’t practicing what they preach when promoting diversity, and Pride month is no exception. This shouldn’t come as much of a shock, with more than 20% of Gen Z adults self-identifying as LGBT in a survey done by Gallup, compared to the national average of 7.1%. Other common examples of rainbow washing …

How Airport Retail Is Changing for Good

In: Retailing Tips|Last Updated: June 12, 2022

For the owners of Gatwick Airport, the U.K.’s second biggest airport, April 2022 was a significant moment: for the first time since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Express train route from central London to the terminal reopened. It’s a sign, Gatwick hopes, that some normalcy is returning to the travel sector. Still, that word “some” is doing a great deal of heavy lifting, airport bosses concede—they fear their industry will never be the same again.

For the retailers that inhabit the world’s airports—and particularly the luxury marques selling more expensive goods—such concerns raise some difficult questions. Will they again ever be able to rely on passengers passing through airports buying goods in segments such as fashion, beauty, consumer electronics, and food and drink?

Prior to COVID-19, airports represented a rare bright spot in the battle between physical retail and e-commerce; passengers passing through airports may have deserted high street stores, but they were still spending large sums when on their travels. The pandemic saw airports close and passenger numbers plummet as travel restrictions limited demand for flights, but retailers had hoped to see a resurgence as the world reopened.

Source: Forbes

Air travel is bouncing back

The good …

How To Bring Your Brand to Market: A Checklist

In: Retailing Tips|Last Updated: June 8, 2022

When you have a fantastic product, you are nothing short of excited to get it into consumers’ hands. But it’s a wide road between an idea and a finished product. And sometimes an even seemingly wider road between finished product and store shelf. Trying to navigate that road can be challenging, but like the millions of products that have gone before you, it’s totally doable.

So, to help you drive that road to store shelf domination, we’ve put together a checklist of things you’ll want to think about when bringing your brand to market. Read on to find out more.

Product knowledge? Check.

If someone were to ask you, “How well do you know your brand?” You’d probably answer, “It’s my brand. I know it well.” And you’re probably right; you probably do know your brand well.

But you can—and should—know it better.

Having detailed knowledge about every aspect of your brand is critical for suppliers to successfully bring a product to market. You’ve no doubt collected market research data (and if you haven’t, then stop reading now and get thee some market data for other brands like yours!), and studied over it, extracting insights left and right. Are you …