Fermentation Bubbles as Trend
Brooklyn, N.Y. —home to the artisanal pickle set—should also be the hot bed of home fermentation, but retailers in that city are split about whether they see a trend out there. “Unfortunately, it never caught on here,” says Jennifer Baron, owner of A Cook’s Companion on Atlantic Avenue. “Maybe I was too ahead of things, but […]
Retail Profile: Rhubarb Kitchen Shop
“I still feel like the new kid,” says Ellen Kluge as she celebrates her store’s 25th year in business. “But apparently I’m not.” Even though Kluge has been with the store, Rhubarb Kitchen Shop, since she first welcomed customers as its manager in 1992, the excitement she feels running the store and greeting customers has […]
Stats: Wellspring for Hydration
Consumers are taking their water with them—whether they are hiking, going to the gym or even heading into the office—and products that help with that are selling well. That’s according to a recent study by The NPD Group Inc., which reports that Hydration represents a $345.7 million dollar growth category for the outdoors industry. But […]
Selling From the Sidewalk
Just as consumers throw yard sales to rid their homes of unwanted clutter, so retailers throw sidewalk sales to rid their stores of merchandise that, for various reasons, is cluttering up shelves. It is an annual process especially embraced by independent retailers who don’t have to deal with corporate policies regarding pricing and discounting. Which […]
Retail Profile: Cooks’Wares
It’s a family affair over at Cooks’Wares, in Cincinnati. Founded by Paul Fricke and his wife, Mary, in 1992, and now run by Mary, along with their son Steve and daughter Sharon, the store has been the go-to place for cooking classes in northern Cincinnati since the day it opened 25 years ago. Steve Fricke, […]
Stats: Back-to-School All Year Long
Every day is back-to-school shopping day. Almost. Back to school shopping, (which includes household items like kitchenware, tableware and home decor among those college-aged folks) has become hard to pin down, according to a new study from The NPD Group. While U.S. students usually go back to school around Labor Day and traditional back-to-school shopping […]
Trends: Here Comes the Registry
As the wedding season peaks for retailers over the summer and fall months, a new survey finds that registries aren’t going out of style: wedding guests continue to choose wedding registries for selecting gifts over other gifting options. According to The Knot’s 2016 Wedding Guest Survey, guests prefer registries, with 37 percent of wedding guests […]
Location! Location?
When Money magazine named Sioux Falls, S.D., on its list of the top 50 places to live last year, it caught some retailers living in Sioux Falls by surprise. Not that they didn’t enjoy the city, but the honorific came along after they had sweated out building a retail business. There was a time Sioux Falls […]
Retail Profile: The Gourmet Warehouse
If Caren McSherry wasn’t the owner of a popular, successful gourmet store, she could be a candidate for the job of Energizer Bunny. When not traveling the world on buying trips for her Vancouver, BC store, The Gourmet Warehouse, McSherry is teaching cooking school, making weekly radio and television appearances, writing cookbooks (her seventh is due out […]
Stats: Meal Kits Still Out at Home
Despite aggressive social media campaigns, meal delivery services are not coming close to replacing home-cooked meals. Yet. According to research from The NPD Group, the buzz around meal kit delivery services like Blue Apron and HelloFresh, “may be greater than those who currently use the kits.” NPD says only about 3 percent of the U.S. […]
