Thanksgiving to Personal Shopping

By Jove: The Biz Buzz

Aha weekly tidbits for the HT Insider

Ok, so what are they saying?  The Friday after Thanksgiving is no longer black, its charcoal grey? Or is it barely black and now starts at 8 pm on the day before. Wasn’t grey the new black this year, anyway?

According to the WSJ, Tuesday 11/26 black Friday is a retail illusion.  I guess the market expression, “Mark it up to mark it down.” finally traveled from 7th Ave. to Wall St. Article- http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304281004579222370781619390

In case you missed the NYT, Sunday 11/21 article “It Takes a Lot of Money to Look This Good” both Emma Sosa and Joan Volpe (FIT Center for Professional Studies) were quoted. The article validates personal shopping as a service and career opportunity.  Kind of reminds me of the old cliché “Does Macy’s tell Gimbel’s?” since the WSJ ran “Really Personal Shopping” on 12/4 underscoring the same theme.   Of course we knew the value of the personal shopper  already since Image Consulting is the longest running Professional Development certificate program. But it is so nice to see top media thinking like us. Article- http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/01/fashion/Personal-Shoppers-Still-Busy.html?smid=pl-share

At the Retail Marketing Society luncheon on Tuesday 12/4 (absolutely one of the best networking and learning experiences in the market, www.retailmarketingsociety.org) the always profound Robin Lewis told it like it is in retail today “The Retail Future: Landscape or Landmines”. According to Robin the faster retailers embrace an Omni-Channel strategy the better their chances of survival. Pure players will not grow and Amazon is already opening stores.  Robin says the market desperately needs talent who understand Omni-Channel and can adapt decisions and merchandising to multi-formats.  Head’s up all of you taking courses in the Omni-Channel certificate.

Have you noticed? Students in the Color certificate program develop a trend forecast in SXC 260 and try to predict the hottest color for the coming season which is then used for the next Hot Topics catalog.

Guess what color Spring 2014 HT will be???

“Love it or Hate it, a new Pink is coming” the WSJ, Thursday, 12/5 as well as Gawker and several other media sources.  Just remember we’ve known about that color for weeks – it’s a Hot Topic! Article- http://gawker.com/the-2014-color-of-the-year-assaults-eyeballs-everywhere-1477259786