By: David Bauders, SPARXiQ CEO Over the thirty years since starting the company now known as SPARXiQ, I’ve worked with over a thousand industrial B2B distributors across a broad diversity of vertical markets. What has struck me across these many years is the surprising variability of business and financial performance within industry sectors. There’s a…
For 20-odd years, third-party cookies have reigned supreme in the advertising world as digital ads rocketed to a market worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Retailers and brands wholeheartedly subscribed to conversion measures they didn’t control, but it’s always been something of an open secret that these cookies were a shoddy substitute for the deep,…
Gamestop reported its first quarterly profit in two years for Q4 2022, which ended Jan. 28, 2023. The retailer reached net income of $48.2 million compared to a net loss of $147.5 million in Q4 2021 despite sales falling slightly to $2.23 billion from $2.25 billion in the previous year. The retailer also reduced its…
Kohl’s has announced the locations of the next 250 stores that will be opening 2,500-square-foot Sephora shop-in-shops in 2023. Last year Kohl’s and Sephora announced plans to expand their partnership to all of Kohl’s more than 1,100 locations. With the addition of these 250 locations, the total Sephora at Kohl’s fleet will reach more than…
Amazon has expanded its reach in the payments arena with the the launch of Express Payout for Amazon Pay merchants and the reported expansion of its cashierless checkout to 200 stores. According to Reuters, the retailer is continuing to expand its cashierless tech through partnerships including a new deal with Panera Bread, which will deploy…
Petco has teamed up with Freshpet to offer subscription delivery of fresh dog food as consumer interest in direct-to-doorstep pet meal plans increases. Source: Petco The fresh and frozen pet food category is expected to grow 3X to 4X in the next four years, reaching up to $6 billion, according to Nielson IQ. Available exclusively…
Last week, NAW was proud to welcome over 300 of our nation’s leading wholesaler-distributors to Washington, DC for the industry’s premier event, the 2023 NAW Executive Summit: The Next Frontier of Wholesale Distribution. We aimed to bring together the best and brightest to discuss the current landscape of wholesale distribution, what’s on the horizon, and…
Even before the pandemic, the forces of change were looming large in wholesale distribution. New generations of buyers were changing how they buy and what they expected from distributors — which in turn, was forcing a wholesale transformation of the modern distributor. The post-WWII distribution-center-with-local-branches model was showing its age. Digital technologies — including e-commerce…
By: Benj Cohen If you’ve been paying attention to the media lately, you’ve probably heard a lot about ChatGPT, the groundbreaking chatbot technology that uses advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning to have natural and lifelike conversations with users. As a distributor, you might have wondered if and how ChatGPT could potentially benefit your business….
What is the difference between a clearance and a sale? A sale is often a specific brand promotion or even a storewide discount.
