Singapore

Visual merchandisers, the ‘creatives’ in the retail industry have their challenges, when the CFOs are constantly looking at budget cuts. What role does the visual merchandiser play in retail and the bottom line, and what do retailers have to consider? Vanessa Ching speaks to some creatives in the industry at the POPAI Asia Summit.

When it comes to considering retail as a career, the ‘retail reality’ is that retail is generally not the first choice for students when choosing their course of study or career path. Vanessa Ching looks into this challenge and how retailers can seek to dispel this negative perception.

Bob Neville, global retail creative director of New Balance, shares with Vanessa Ching his thoughts on creativity, the importance of storytelling and creative talent.

There is no minimum wage rate in some Asian cities. Hence, retailers there will set their own wage rate based on what their business models can bear and what they think is fair.

Fast Retailing, operator of Uniqlo, the Japanese-based casual wear chain, has teamed up with Accenture to use cutting-edge technology to hone its production capability and to provide more personalised services to shoppers.

Higher purchasing costs, due to the strong US dollar, dampened second-quarter results at H&M, the world’s second-biggest fashion retailer, and the situation may be even worse for the rest of the year.

A Global habit survey by Hakuhodo has shown some interesting — and not so similar — traits among women shoppers in South-east Asia.

AMERICAN EAGLE OUTFITTERS (AEO) has made its debut in Singapore as an anchor tenant at VivoCity via its Singapore partner — Star 360 Holdings Pte Ltd (STARTHREESIXTY).

Asia’s food and hospitality industry is clearly on the rise. Investments are continually being poured into hotels, restaurants and other F&B establishments to cater for the growing demand for good food, and Asia is also home to some of the best restaurants and chefs in the world.

Rising costs, manpower shortages, intense competition and food supply challenges are some of the roadblocks experienced by many F&B SMEs.

Techi – the robot waiter

TRADITIONAL laser scanners read linear barcodes at the point of sale — a technology that greatly simplified checkout. But today’s highly developed area-imaging scanners enable greater capability and flexibility, putting far more productivity into the hands of retail employees and allowing for revenue-generating mobile marketing initiatives.

For more than 40 years, Honeywell’s mobility and scanning products and solutions have helped customers to improve their retail workflow processes, thus increasing their productivity and profitability. As e-commerce is reshaping the retail, logistics and supply-chain industries, Honeywell has been adapting to customers’ evolving needs and providing innovative technologies and proven workflow solutions to help retailers and logistics companies to win.

True, ‘disruption’ may be an over-used word these days.

Kingsmen Creatives Ltd, a Singapore-based communication design and production group, with over 20 offices worldwide, has risen to hit the big 40 in 2016. Achieving its mission to revolutionise design and visual communication for almost four decades has not made Kingsmen’s founders Simon Ong and Benedict Soh battle weary but energised them in that they are nurturing a team to continue their work ethos and culture of being ‘Kingsmen’ to all their clients. Over a cup of tea, group managing director Simon Ong shares his reflection with Retail Asia’s managing editor Vanessa Ching …