Retail

Creating the Right Omni-Channel Experience Journey in a Metaverse World

The customer journey is closer to becoming seamless with the convergence of brand focus on UX, omnichannel, and overall shopping experience. However, much will change as a new sales channel emerges with the advent of the metaverse and augmented reality. What seems like a novel platform gained momentum with the recent announcement that Apple’s creation […]

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Small Changes, Big Impact: How 6 Retail Brands Are Becoming More Sustainable

As the world transitions towards a plastic-free future, retailers need to keep up with sustainable packaging trends. Previous methods of packaging that retailers considered essential, cost-saving measures, such as single-use plastic shopping bags, utensils, or cups, are losing their desirability. Using cheap sources of plastic ensures products are safe – but creates an ecological issue

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The Future of Sustainable Packaging

Uncategorized / Jean-Pierre Lacroix

Understanding the sustainable packaging context Brands, retailers, and consumers increasingly want to reduce their use of unsustainable products and packaging. However, visiting a supermarket anywhere in North America doesn’t necessarily reflect this desire. Consumers still shop without reusable shopping bags, and the recycling bins are only getting fuller. There are some positive signs: in 2021,

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How will EV charging transform fuel retail?

Environmental Design / David Magnus

As electric vehicles slowly overtake the roads, EV charging stations will become a must-have for gas stations. If you need to install specialized electric vehicle charging points on your premises, you will ideally need some electric parking bay markings from https://evchargingbaymarkings.co.uk/ to help identify the areas. Even though the infrastructural demands, market uncertainty and regional

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The Future of the Hospitality Industry

Brand Engagement, Brand Strategy, COVID / Sebastian Maynard

Every other day, you read a headline about labor shortages hurting restaurants and hospitality. In some places, companies are recruiting 14-year-olds, while others are offering big signing bonuses. Many restaurants are closing their doors several days a week because they don’t have enough staff to stay open, further hurting businesses that have managed barely to

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Future-Proofing for the Metaverse

Brand Strategy, Digital Experiences / Sebastian Maynard

The movie Ready Player One, live events hosted by Fortnite, and Facebook’s recent name change to “Meta” are all harbingers of a coming advance in technology that will be a game-changer: the metaverse. Just how far away we are from the vision Mark Zuckerberg laid out in his infamous video is a subject of great

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Five Ways to Fill the Digital Transformation Gap for Retail Brands

Brand Engagement, Brand Strategy, Communications, Customer Experience, Digital Experiences, Financial Services, Retail, Retail Design / Jean-Pierre Lacroix

The Current State of Transformation Digital transformation, for many institutions, has ended at the doorstep of their retail channels. The pandemic has accelerated the growth of both Amazon and Fintech, forcing banks and retailers to shift their focus to digital to help drive sales and customer retention. However, as digital transformation efforts mature and

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Best Brand Stories of 2021

Brand Engagement, Brand Strategy, COVID / Sebastian Maynard

At the end of the year, we like to regroup and look back at the big brand stories that caught our attention throughout the year. And this year was a particularly strange one. The pandemic experience has become regionalized and our appetite for doom scrolling has kind of disappeared. Political intrigues have been flying under

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What Will 2022 Look Like for Retail Brands?

Brand Strategy, Business development, convid retail, Customer Experience, Design Innovation, Digital Experiences, Retail / Sebastian Maynard

2021 was not the year many had hoped for. The pandemic, natural disasters, inflation, supply chain issues and a persistently polarized planet has put humanity’s resilience to the test. Yet, with the new year’s arrival, there is renewed hope that conditions will stabilize and provide retailers with a clearer look ahead. As a future-focused strategic

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SLD’s 2022 Trends Report

Brand Strategy, COVID, Customer Experience / Sebastian Maynard

Welcome to SLD’s second annual trends report! Last year, we were in the midst of a global pandemic that called into question what the future of design and business as a whole could look like. Though a lot of those questions still linger, 2021 has at least provided some clarity on the trends that will

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The Best Brand Pivots of COVID-19

Brand Engagement, COVID, Customer Experience / Sebastian Maynard

As we look back on 2021, it would be nice to be able to view COVID-19 in the rearview mirror with a sigh of relief. But to quote Michael Corleone, “just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!” This must be the way a lot of brands are feeling right now,

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Five Trends Influencing Retail’s Labour Shortage

Brand Strategy, convid retail, Retail / Sebastian Maynard

Since the pandemic began, retail has been in a state of near-constant crisis and change. For those who have made it this far in solid shape, a new challenge is arising that poses a longer-term threat: staffing. As headlines across the continent state loud and clear, there is a shortage of workers especially in frontline

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Showrooms, Flagships, and the Future of Destination Shops

Brand Strategy, Customer Experience, Design Innovation, Digital Experiences, Retail, Retail Design / Sebastian Maynard

Retail may have suffered a blow during the harshest times of the pandemic, but as we emerge in various stages around North America, people are heading back to stores, salons, restaurants, theaters, and malls. But are they shopping the way that they used to? A significant shift to e-commerce is not the only drastic change

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The Rise of Slow Fashion

Brand Engagement, Brand Strategy, Customer Experience / Sebastian Maynard

For many years, fast fashion was on top – cheap, ubiquitous, ripped from the runway designs that were so fast and easy they were literally designed to be disposable. However, the impact of this approach to clothing has come under intense criticism. From enormous quantities of product ending up in landfills to chemical dye pollution

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Physi-Digital: Humanizing Digital Transformation for Retail

Brand Strategy, Customer Experience, Digital Experiences, Health and Pharmaceutical / Sebastian Maynard

Transformation is messy and carries a high degree of failure, with more than 84 percent of digital transformations failing and more than 9 billion dollars going to waste. The pandemic has increased the risk due to the accelerated need for organizations to digitally transform themselves to respond to the shift to online shopping, home delivery,

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The Future of E-Commerce for CPG Brands

Customer Experience, Digital Experiences, Food and Beverage, Retail / Sebastian Maynard

Even though grocery stores remained open during lockdown, many people chose to do their grocery shopping online to avoid exposure to COVID. In fact, in SLD’s recent study on e-commerce for CPG brands, 69 percent of respondents said they shopped more online for groceries during the pandemic. For CPG brands, this news is not generally

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Humanizing Digital Transformation: Webinar

Sebastian Maynard

Industry leaders ath Power, Bridjr, Engageware, Intel, JohnRyan, OptiFi and SLD have joined forces to create a new collective: H2D. An acronym for Human to Digital, the new group’s mission is to drive greater transformational value for brands through their areas of expertise, which include humanized engagement, immersive experiences, and marketing optimization. To celebrate the

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H2D Collective Launches With Aim of Humanizing Digital Transformations

Sebastian Maynard

Industry leaders ath Power, Bridjr, Engageware, Intel, JohnRyan, OPTiFi and SLD have joined forces to create a new collective: H2D. An acronym for Human to Digital, the new group’s mission is to drive greater transformational value for brands through their respective areas of expertise, which include humanized engagement, immersive experiences, and marketing optimization. “The H2D

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SLD Takes Home Four Awards at Grands Prix Du Design

David Magnus

The GRANDS PRIX DU DESIGN Awards are an annual celebration of the “designers and architects who improve our quality of life and the built environment.” Now in its 14th year, the first round of winners were recently announced, and SLD is proud to have been recognized with awards for our work with bbtease, Maxwell House,

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How Wellness Brands Can Best Leverage E-Commerce

Brand Strategy / Matthew Wilson

The pandemic accelerated e-commerce and there is no turning back. Various sources suggest that in a few short months we have leapt as much as 10 years ahead in terms of growth! Not only are people shopping more online for products: they are utilizing services that previously were primarily available in-person, including health and wellness

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