Toronto's recent DX3 conference showed off some of the new technologies that tech savvy retailers can now apply to give their customers a better instore experience.

Long feared by bricks and mortar retailers as yet another weapon used by online, it would seem that showrooming is not as big a threat as first feared. In fact it's a great opportunity.

Where once the house brand was the cheap and cheerful alternative, the GFC has made Private labels mainstream.

While QR code usage and familiarity is growing the key issue to them being more valued is the user experience

Retail Concept Excellence: Best Made Company, New York

Every now and again, in our quest to keep our clients and readers abreast of what is happening in the big wide world of retail, catalogues and content, we come across an out of the box retailer who we just have to tell you about.

There's no doubt that in the last 10 years or so the headline battle has gone to the Online guys. Disruptive technology tends to do that. "12,000% change in online spending last 20 years" is a headline I'm yet to see but I'm expecting to any day now.

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.

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.

For the first time, John Lewis and its stable-mate Waitrose have overtaken Marks & Spencer as the darling of the UK's High Street.

Sucharita Mulpuru is Forrester's Principal Analyst and when she speaks, marketers listen.

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.

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.

OK, so you've jut put together the greatest campaign ever. How do you transfer your enthusiasm to your store network?

The nice guy of German retail, Michael Otto is under attack from Jeff Bezos' Amazon. And right now, he's losing.

Forbes Magazine takes you through a short history of the Otto company (including CEO Michael Otto's beginnings in the catalogue business - hence our initial interest in the story) and then poses the question: Can a family-owned retail giant run by a paternalistic billionaire compete with the efficiency-obsessed behemoths born of the cut-throat Internet? Do nice guys finish last?

With share price double the IPO listing in November 2012 and surging a whopping 14% two weeks ago, everyone wants to know what Restoration Hardware is doing so right

Macy's has been one of the great retail success stories of the last decade, but particularly since the GFC and the rise of online retail.

With 800 stores under the Macy's and Bloomingdale's brands, CEO Terry Lundgren has driven Macy's share price to 450% up on 2008, four times the S&P500 index. And, probably a linked metric, Macy's is now the 10th largest internet retailer by revenue after Netflix.

We ran a Short News article in the last Toolbox which appeared logical on the face of it and backed up commonly held perceptions of the death of shopping centres - "Sears and JC Penney Deserting Already Struggling Malls". But that really did shopping centres and their operators a great dis-service.

Right about now, retailers around the world are planning their Xmas Catalogues. And some are planning not to have one at all. So what are the pros and cons of catalogues? Are you for them or against them? What's the risk of going all online?