2018Issue1_Alabama_v2.indd

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OUTSIDE THE BOX NEW RETAIL PERSPECTIVES

Don’t let anyone tell you there are no differences between men and women – at least when it comes to retail loyalty programs, according to research by Kantar TNS. For example, approximately 54 percent of men use the in store navigation feature on their smartphones compared with only 36 percent of women. And while nearly 90 percent of women are members of at least one loyalty program, only 71 percent of men have it. Men and women also respond differently to what they want from a loyalty program. Fifty-five per cent of women say offers and promotions to be quite important and are more interested in the quality and quantity of the rewards. Men find digital achievements and games more important.

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The Show Must Go On Everyone thought circus was dead when Ringling Bros., and Barnum & Bailey folded up its tent earlier this year. No so! It just needed a format change. The 150-year-old tradition is alive and well at the Eastern States Exposition, a New England fair also called the Big E, which has seen attendance double to 1.4 million visitors annually. The new format is more financially manageable since there are no touring costs and only one ring so it’s less expensive to produce. It’s become so popular that the format might be expanded nationally.

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Fewer laws have been more divisive in retail than the ones that regulate paper bags. Tesco in the U.K. may have found a solution by offering its “Bag for Life”, a reusable carrier priced at roughly 10 cents who sales will be used to fund community projects across the U.K. As of late August, the chain said it had given out 1.5 million fewer single use bags since 2015 due to government regulations but still sells over 700 million of them annually. The Bags for Life are replaced free of charge if damaged. OUT OF THE BAG

If you think smart speakers like Amazon’s Echo are just another fad or toy – think again. The market is growing quickly and the item stands to become as common in the home as a toaster. About 10.7 million Amazon customers in the U.S. owned the Echo at the end of this year’s first quarter, compared with three million a year ago. Gartner market research believes spending on smart speakers will be $3.5 billion globally by 2021. TALKING BACK

Photo by Piotr Cichosz on Unsplash

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