Retailer Must Reads: Counting Down Vend’s Most Popular Posts of 2021
As 2021 comes to a close, we figured it’s high time to look back at some of the most popular blog posts of the year. Aside from shedding light on which topics resonated with the retail community, we hope this list helps uncover insights and learnings that you can take into 2022.
Some of the common themes that came up this year include the following:
- Inventory management and reporting continue to be popular areas of interest among retailers
- Readers want to learn more about how to improve their marketing efforts
- Keeping employees motivated is also a key priority in retail
There’s a lot to unpack here, so without further ado, check out Vend’s top 10 most popular posts of 2021!
You can’t manage your inventory if you don’t have the right data. But what exactly should you track? This post lists 12 of the most important inventory KPIs in retail and offers tips on how to measure them. Have a look, and if you aren’t tracking these KPIs yet, be sure to do so in 2022.
With the labor shortage plaguing the retail industry, many companies are struggling to attract and retain great team members. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that one of the most-read posts of the year talks about staff incentives. If you’re curious about the steps you can take to keep employees motivated, this post will give you plenty of ideas!
This article puts the spotlight on Cleverly Wrapped, a women’s clothing store in the UK. The company’s founder, Harriet Cleverly, shares the steps that she and her team take in order to keep shoppers coming back. From publishing a high-value newsletter to sharing relatable images and examples, Harriet has lots of customer retention tactics up her sleeve.
Ever wonder what a great retail store experience looks like? Say no more. In this post, we share a handful of real-life examples of experiential retail initiatives. If you’re planning to level up your retail experience strategy in 2022 (and you totally should), be sure to check out this article for ideas and inspiration.
Going omnichannel is something that pretty much every retailer knows they should do, but putting it into practice is a whole other story. While the right omnichannel strategy varies from one retailer to another, there are some general best practices that apply to nearly all merchants. This article shares some of those pointers to help you implement a successful retail strategy across multiple channels.
The retail industry is still reeling from the pandemic, so merchants are understandably curious about what a post-COVID world would look like. To answer that, we caught up with Caila Schwartz, a Senior Manager for Strategy and Insights RCG at Salesforce. Caila analyzes real shopping data collected from Salesforce’s Commerce Cloud platform, and she extracts trends and insights based on those findings. Check out this post to view Caila’s thoughts and tips on how to succeed in a post-pandemic world.
Retail planning isn’t something you can do overnight; it’s a continuous process that involves setting goals, understanding your market, and optimizing accordingly. Check out these high-level retail planning steps that can help level up your retail biz.
SMS marketing has been making waves in the retail world for some time now, and for good reason: it works. That said, the results that you’ll get out of SMS will vary based on your marketing strategy. To help ensure that you get the most out of SMS marketing, we chatted with Brent Spicer, the Co-Founder and Co-CEO at the marketing automation platform Marsello, and asked him to share his top SMS marketing tips.
This article puts the spotlight on Island Treasure Toys, a multi-store toy retailer on the coast of Maine. Established about 20 years ago, the business was purchased by Paul and Emily Drappi in 2019 and has continued to flourish — even throughout the pandemic. We interviewed Paul and asked him to share the story behind the business and what he and Emily are doing to modernize their operations.
The retail landscape is constantly evolving and the best thing you can do to stay competitive is keep up with industry trends and ensure that you’re capitalizing on the ones that matter most to your business. In this post, we invited Meghan Stabler, the VP of Global Product Marketing and Communications at BigCommerce, to share her thoughts on the top consumer trends making waves in retail.
Final words
We hope you enjoyed this list! Needless to say, we’ll continue to publish informative and valuable content in 2022 and beyond, so watch this space. Here’s to your retail success in the coming year!
About Francesca Nicasio
Francesca Nicasio is Vend’s Retail Expert and Content Strategist. She writes about trends, tips, and other cool things that enable retailers to increase sales, serve customers better, and be more awesome overall. She’s also the author of Retail Survival of the Fittest, a free eBook to help retailers future-proof their stores. Connect with her on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Google+.