November / December 2015

Omnichannel retail strategy, by definition, involves getting a lot of different things–websites, brick-and-mortar stores, supply chains, ads, consumer outreach–working in sync.

Now that the first regulations from the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) have been issued, it's time for retailers to start creating an enterprise-wide culture of food safety. The reason is simple.

Increasingly corporations are tapping the brainpower of startups for innovative products and technology they wouldn't have dreamed up themselves. Often the new ideas have the millennial market in mind.

Retailers are generally satisfied with the degree of cooperation they get from their suppliers, according to the latest exclusive Retail Leader survey. Almost all (92.2 percent) characterized cooperation with suppliers as good or excellent, and none said it was poor.

There are moments when the guidance offered by two pieces of conventional wisdom collide in contradiction and prompt a direction setting decision be made.

As a child, whenever I turned up my nose at whatever my Mother had prepared for dinner, she was quick to remind me of the starving children elsewhere who would be overjoyed to have the very food I was rejecting.

So retailers are renewing their acquaintance with a growing list of sustainability factors, from organic, local and farm-to-table products to practices mindful of conservation, climate change, human rights, fair trade, fair wages and gender equality.

In stores of the future, retailers will go above and beyond to personalize the experience for shoppers. But exactly what the personalization will look like will vary from store to store.

I'm not sure that applies literally any more, given the international concerns that have pushed to the forefront in this season's presidential race. But I do think that, even if localness is less important in politics, it's steadily becoming more so in groceries.