As one of Australia's most awarded retail catalogue designers, we love it when a doyen of the online retail industry endorses our way of thinking.

Net-a-Porter's decision to release their new publication "Porter" comes in the face of so many marketers who have pulled back from print in the belief that it is old-fashioned or "not working."

Plenty has been written about how the internet has changed HOW consumers buy. I'd like to advance the somewhat more radical thought that it will likely change WHAT they buy. Unless bricks and mortar retailers lift their game.

Cost-of-entry tenets like "keep the customer at the centre of your thinking" and "deliver on the promise of omnichannel" might still resound but Stores Magazine has made its 7 key predictions of what it sees "in store" (their terrible pun) for US retailers in 2014.

A recent UK study shows why customers' service expectations are becoming so high - and it's being driven in part by device usage and behaviour.

If you want a great example of content marketing you need look no further than US online furniture and homewares retailer pure-play One Kings Lane.

Following hard on the heels of last week's article "Perfect Market Knowledge - No Replacement for Great Ideas"  by Geoffrey Gifford, I came across a recent article by my good friend Ruth Stevens in "Target Marketing"

Too often we've heard the GFC or disruptive technology blamed for discounting and reduced margins, which of course, are contributing factors. But I think there's a much more basic reason. Simply, marketers have been slow to adapt to the new fundamentals.

This month's roundup of Millennial Marketing articles includes general ways this cohort are changing marketing thinking, specific factors they are reacting to, their comfort with technology for their young children and their desire for overseas travel.

A few years ago I worked for the retail division of a large entertainment company in California. Every week we would have a large marketing meeting involving 20 - 30 people. We would all show up with spreadsheets and presentations. Most of my week was dedicated to producing a report for that meeting.

For those wanting to target the higher net worth consumer, a study released in September last year is worthy of note.The Ipsos Affluent Survey USA shows that the well-off continue to be enthusiastic consumers of traditional media, notwithstanding a small decline of 2% over the previous 12 months.

A new survey by global data privacy management company TRUSTe has found that consumers are becoming more concerned about privacy than they were - and they are changing their online behaviour accordingly.

Australian retail brands tend to be like moths to a flame when it comes to the short term gains of a good sale - and understandably so when they are under pressure to meet their sales forecasts. 

However, a good idea, a good brand or product story, can still have an exponential effect in terms of positioning retail brands and creating customer loyalty.