David Gold, the modest and visionary founder of 99 Cents Only Stores, started his retail empire in Los Angeles on Friday, August 13, 1982. The retail chain, which had gone public on the New York Stock Exchange in 1996 (with an initial share price of 99 cents, naturally) grew over a 30-year span to a valuation of $1.6 billion when it was acquired by Ares Management in 2012. On April 7, 2024, 99 Cents Only Stores LLC filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and announced it planned to liquidate and close all its 371 stores in California, Arizona, Nevada, and Texas and let go over 10,800 part ..read more

Pandora, known for its iconic charm bracelets and the world’s largest jewelry company by volume, is now using 100% recycled gold and silver in its products, way ahead of its goal to go full-on recycled by 2025. The shift to recycled metals avoids 58,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions – the slightly larger metric equivalent to a ton – and equal to the annual electricity usage of 11,000 homes or driving 6,000 cars around the world. Following the disruption of the pandemic, Lacik implemented a strategic plan called Phoenix. “As the myth tells us, the phoenix bird possesses superpowers, most notably th ..read more

Anytime a new CEO takes over a company there are usually polite – if often curt – words about the prior administration. Such niceties seemed to have escaped Marcus Lemonis who is now running the company called Beyond Inc. that was once Overstock and now owns the resurrected online-only Bed Bath & Beyond. Lemonis, in his leading role on the TV series, “The Prophet,” has been no stranger to controversy with numerous participants accusing him of all sorts of bad things. Some have even led to lawsuits. Since taking over the leadership of Beyond Inc. he has been assertive in his comments and ..read more

Since the announcement in mid-February that renowned fashion designer Zac Posen was joining Gap as EVP +Creative Director Gap Inc. and Chief Creative Officer at Old Navy, people have been speculating on his ability to restore some luster to the brand portfolio. Will they be the miracle workers to turn around Gap’s decline? Powerful partnerships have created legendary brands and corporations. In fashion we’ve had Tom Ford and Gucci’s Dominico De Sole; Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé; and Marco Bizzarri and Alessandro Michele at Gucci 2.0. Three of the two teams broke barriers and created ..read more

When Tony Spring, CEO of Macy’s energetically (and surprisingly) quotes Jelly Roll, “There’s a reason the windshield is bigger than the rear-view mirror,” you could say it’s a quintessential Shoptalk moment. Foresight is everything. Retail tech is a burgeoning industry offering its often-remarkable solutions to legacy and emerging retail. How to make sense of it is another thing altogether. The Robin Report has collaborated with Shoptalk from the time it was just an inspired idea in Simran’s and Anil’s Aggarwal minds.  Now eight years later the annual Spring celebration of tech talk con ..read more

The recent Federal Trade Commission (FTC) report on feeding America, which sheds light on retailers and CPG price gouging practices during the pandemic, has sent shockwaves through the retail grocery industry. Among the companies implicated are grocery retailers and wholesalers Kroger, Walmart, Amazon, C&S Wholesale Grocers, McLane and Associated Wholesale Grocers. However, Kroger and Albertsons find themselves in a particularly precarious position as they navigate not only the fallout from the report but also their impending merger. Procter & Gamble, Kraft Heinz and Tyson Foods were ..read more

Liquid Death sparkling water. Now that’s an ominous-sounding name. But it has singlehandedly turned H2O into a billion-dollar elixir. And its packaging seems to take inspiration from something in between Heavy Metal Goth and Mexico’s Día de Los Muertos – even the logo’s font has a sort of Sepultura-esque feel. Newcomers to this product might reasonably expect that inside each can you’d find some concoction of equal parts Jägermeister and gasoline. Since its initial launch in 2019, hundreds of thousands of aficionados have opted to “sell their souls” to join the Liquid Death Country Club, an ..read more

HBO recently aired a documentary based on the Insider exposé by Kate Taylor titled “Brandy Hellville & The Cult of Fast Fashion.” It chronicles the toxic culture being spread around the world by one of the hottest of the hot teen apparel brands, Brandy Melville. It’s clever wordplay as a film title considering recent reports that the brand’s toxicity resembles a hellville or an “evil” cult teen brand. The film is stitched together with Taylor’s narrative and many TikTok and Instagram moments with customers and former employees, many shielded from facial recognition. Marsan is an echo, wh ..read more

Let’s play a little Dialing for Dollars; the big picture is about Dollar Tree closing. Today’s question is: Why did Dollar Tree decide to close 1,000 of its Family Dollar and Dollar Tree locations? It may be a trick question and the answer is rather complicated. See if you can get the right one: It is the fallout from a deal almost ten years ago that Dollar Tree thought it won…but turned out to have lost big-time. It reflects the fact that this economy is very complex, and the hardships being felt by customers are very different than in previous downturns. It’s about a management that should ..read more

Technology evangelists perpetually proclaim the next wave of retail disruption. But do retailers need more disruption? Hasn’t Covid, the fall of malls, and the proliferation of new marketplaces been enough? Rather than instilling even more anxiety about keeping up with disruption, 2024 offers an opportunity to weave tech innovations together to optimize operations and deliver personalized shopping experiences. In a missed opportunity moment, Kohl’s had the green light to deploy RFID in all stores back in 2014, but it never happened. Its inability to access store level inventory data resulted ..read more