24 Best Retail Blogs Perfect for the Entrepreneur to Follow
The world of retail is difficult to navigate. With the ease of entry also comes the ease of disruption, a plentitude of competitors, and more threats. In order to be ahead on the trends – rather than behind them – it’s important to follow the right blogs with information tailored to your small retail business. Luckily, Shopify compiled a complete list; following are 24 best retail blogs any business owner should follow ASAP.
Smart Retail
This site is home to the “Smart Retail” web series hosted by Scott Kreisberg featuring interviews with retail stores all across L.A. The episodes take an in-depth look at how independent or speciality retailers are running their businesses while sharing their lessons learned from both their successes and failures.
Retail Adventures Blog
Featuring the latest and greatest insights from Rich Kizer and Georganne Bender, this blog offers readers their unique perspectives as speakers, authors, consumer anthropologists, and consultants to some of the world’s biggest retailers. On the blog you’ll find tips on everything from customer service, merchandising, and everything in between that’s relevant to you successfully running your retail store.
Retail Insider
Founded and edited by Glynn Davis, a business writer who specializes in retail and the food and drinks industry and has seen his work appear in the likes of The Financial Times. Retail Insider is meant to give readers a “behind-the-scenes” look of the UK’s small business retailers, intermixed with interviews from Q&A posts with CEO’s, and the best places to get drinks around town.
The Retail Doctor
Reading this blog will allow you to peer into the brain of Bob Phibbs, a nationally recognized retail expert with over 30 years of experience under his belt, with each post having a great deal of insight to offer you and your small business. He provides a wealth of information on everything from employee training and retention, making your store events a success, and lessons retailers can learn from the success and failures of other businesses. In addition to his blog, be sure to check out his latest book The Retail Doctor’s Guide to growing Your Business.
Retail Minded
Retail Minded is recognized as one of the most trusted resources for independent retailers. It’s focused on both the work and life aspects of being a small business retailer. Retail Minded (RM) has been a go-to blog for retail advice since being founded 2007 by Nicole Leinbach Reyhle. In addition to the blog, Nicole is also the founder of the Independent Retailer Conference. Further, the company puts out a Retail Minded magazine, which it sells through the blog.
Retail Touch Points Blog
If you’re looking for the latest consumer behaviour trends, retail trends, and marketing advice, glance at Retail Touch Point’s Tumblr blog. It primarily targets retail executives in big box chains. The content, however, is still invaluable for the mom and pop store with big aspirations for their own brand. They also have a number of resources available on their website. This includes webinars, infographics, and research reports if you’re really keen on gaining a better understanding a given demographic or trend.
Retail Customer Experience Blog
Ever wanted expert and hands on advice from a wide array of trusted sources? Then this should be your go to source. More than 50+ retail experts sharing their insights and domain knowledge for the everyday retailer. It doesn’t get much better than this if you’re looking to change the way you operate your business or are looking to turn it around for increased sales and growth.
Forrester Retail Blog
The Forrester blog’s retail category is a goldmine of useful information and trends. It’s one of the world’s largest and most reliable source of research, data, and consultation services. The blog is far more high-level and targeted at bigger retail chains. It never hurts, however, to glimpse at some of the consumer and technological trends that impact and shape the way consumers behave in a smaller retailer’s store.
Shop.Org Blog
Shop.org’s mandate is to provide its valued membership community a premier destination for a slew of topics. This includes topics that include: omnichannel strategy, emerging retail technology, and a great deal more.
Retail Design Blog
The Retail Design Blog is one of the premier destinations for retail designers and visual merchandisers looking for the latest trends, insights, and inspiration in their fields. It’s a place where designers upload, share, and comment on everything from furniture, lighting, materials, branding and using eco materials. Join the fun by contributing to the community. Or just browse all the incredible imagery showcasing the best of boutique retail design from around the world.
CrossCap’s Retail Marketing Blog
This blog exclusively dedicates itself to retail marketing technologies. CrossCap belongs to a company that has worked with several Fortune 1000 retailers with the planning, execution, and analysis of their omni-channel marketing plans. With retailers having to focus their attention on so many different channels when it comes to getting the word out, a good place to start learning how to do it right, would be CrossCap’s blog.
New Retail Blog
Looking to help readers navigate the realities of the new retail world, New Retail Blog provides insights on topics like brand strategy, consumer trends and retail marketing. Powered by IdeaWorks, one of Australia’s leading retail marketing agencies, you can expect to find real gems of information relevant to your business. It also provides the latest retail inspiration around customer activation, direct marketing, and store design.
The National Retail Federation (NRF) Blog
NRF is touted as the world’s largest retail trade association that represents everyone from discount and department stores to wholesalers and chain restaurants. The NRF is out to advance the retail industry’s status quo through advocacy, communication and education. It’s “Retail’s Big Blog” covers retail trends, interviews with retail executives and data to help small businesses make smarter marketing decisions when it comes to reaching their target consumers.
Inspire: Retail Design Blog
This is another retail interior and store design blog from a small design consultancy based out of the UK. It features curated content of the latest and greatest retail design inspiration from its own team of design consultants in addition to experts from around the world.
Design 4 Retail
Design 4 Retail has clients ranging from Adidas, Hillarys and Diesel. Accordingly, this agency-run blog features the best of retail design curated by design specialists that know how to get foot traffic through store layout, point-of-purchase and window displays, and have experience working with the hottest brands. Keep up-to-date with what brands like Anthropologie and Fendi are up to with their displays as a start so you can start thinking about how you can spruce up your retail design skills.
Retail Prophet
You can probably tell from the blog name alone that Doug Stephens, one of the world’s foremost retail industry futurist, isn’t kidding around when it comes to helping you envision the future of retail. His posts touch upon the latest retail and technological trends that you need to keep on top of to know how your business will shape up over the coming years. He’s also the author of The Retail Revival: Re-Imagining Business for the New Age of Consumerism.
Retailing In Focus
This blog is brought to you via Dick Seesel, a retail industry veteran who has over 30 years of experience. He has been running his consulting practice rightfully called Retailing In Focus. The company works to provide strategic growth advice to both venders and retailers. With posts featuring his view on the decisions of big and small retailers alike, this blog has a great deal to offer small business retailers when it comes to strategically planning their growth.
RetailWire Blog
On the RetailWire blog you get to peer into the head of Kevin Graff, president of Graff Retail. With over 20 years of experience, Graff Retail is now one of Canada’s leading retail training and consulting firms. Needless to say, his posts on the latest happenings in retail will be useful to any small retailer looking to understand the bigger picture when it comes to the ever growing world of retail.
Duct Tape Marketing
John Jantsch needs little introduction, a leading marketing consultant, speaker, and author of three books. He’s been described as the “Peter Drucker of small business marketing tactics,” by Seth Godin. This makes his blog, books, and podcast all mandatory reading and listening for any small business owner looking to maximize their marketing tactics with a limited budget.
Customer Insight Group Loyalty Blog
Brought to you by the Customer Insight Group, the Loyalty Blog, offers insights, trends, data, research, and commentary on how the biggest brands are engaging and retaining their customers. As you can probably guess, these tactics and trends apply to small businesses looking to build great customer relationships just the same, so be sure to keep posted.
Retail Geek
The Retail Geek is one of the internet’s best omni-channel retail blogs. Jason Goldberg, who heads the multi-channel commerce and content group at Razorfish, a top digital marketing firm, helps retailers understand how they can deliver an optimized shopping experience across multiple touch points. With more than 10,000 retail visits under his belt, you can bet he knows a thing or two about what makes for exceptional retail shopping experiences and how you too can start delighting your customers.
Retail Eye
Retail Eye is a go-to hub for retailing trends, concepts, and best practices and is operated by the J.C. Williams Group, a global retail consulting practice. They do a fantastic job at providing a global perspective on innovative global trends. With the world getting flatter, that’s exactly what small businesses need to have a deeper understanding of.
Retail Technology Trends
The blog’s name speaks for itself. The pace of innovation in retail technology growing at an unprecedented rate. Tim Dickey is a retail technology consultant for NCR Canada Corp. His blog does an excellent job of making sure his audience has a good grasp on the latest trends.
Shopify
With the launch of Shopify POS and Shopify Mobile, Shopify evolved their ecommerce platform to an “everywhere commerce” platform. It’s enabling merchants to sell online, in-store and everywhere in between. With that, they’ve committed to providing growing retail merchants with all the resources they need to be successful. From DIY window display tips, to the types of signage you need to get started, and how the biggest retailers are succeeding on Instagram, Shopify has you covered on enabling you to sell anywhere at anytime.
Stay in the Know About Retail
The previous blogs all cover retail, but the aspects of retail vary. Some offer a behind-the-scenes look at certain stores, while others offer measured trends and data. Some, on the other hand, offer very specific information, like retail marketing. That’s why it’s vital to consider following as many of these as possible. Each one gives you some unique information when it comes to retail. Give your small retail business its best shot with the right news.
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