Menomonee Falls, Wis. – Kohl’s has named Christie Raymond as the company’s new chief marketing officer.
“I’m thrilled to have Christie step into the role of chief marketing officer for Kohl’s,” said Michelle Gass, Kohl’s CEO. “She joined Kohl’s several years ago bringing her tremendous experience and customer-driven leadership approach to the marketing organization.”
Raymond joined Kohl’s in 2017 as senior vice president, media and personalization, and moved up to executive vice president, customer engagement, analytics and insights in June 2020. She has been acting as the interim chief marketing officer since May 2022.
“Christie has been an asset to our senior executive team and she will be instrumental in our continued path forward as we deliver great value, a compelling brand portfolio and an inviting omnichannel experience to our millions of customers nationwide,” Gass added.
Raymond will lead the marketing organization including Kohl’s overall marketing strategy, brand and creative, media, loyalty, customer analytics, corporate communications, and Kohl’s philanthropic efforts. To support the company’s strategy to be the retailer of choice for the active and casual lifestyle, she will drive customer engagement, leverage the company’s leadership in loyalty, accelerate customer traffic, scale Kohl’s Media Network, and continue to build the Kohl’s brand.
Prior to Kohl’s, Christie held progressive roles at The Walt Disney Company. She has more than 20 years of marketing, retail industry and leadership experience.
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]]>Helsingborg, Sweden — For nearly two weeks, Aug. 25-Sept. 10, the annual Ikea Festival will space nine cities around the world with 10 topics to celebrate people’s creativity and inventiveness at home.
The festival will take place in online around the world and in nine host stores, including two in the U.S.: Austin, Texas, and Brooklyn, N.Y., as well as Madrid, Paris, Vienna, Shanghai, Stockholm, Sweden, Sydney and Tokyo.
The nine host stores each day will host in-store events, live shopping, social media content creators and a new web platform to watch the festival around the world as it focuses on food, sports, gaming, music and dance, nature, fashion and beauty, collecting, arts and crafts, focus and wellness, and pets.
“It has been a joy to see Ikea Festival grow over the past few years,” said Marcus Engman, chief creative office of Ingka Group. “This time, we are focusing on people who want to spend more time doing their hobbies and passions.
“A Billy bookcase is a Billybookcase in every Ikea store in the world,” he added. “It’s when you take it home that it transforms. That intersection is what we want to explore and celebrate during Ikea Festival.”
In addition to the nine host cities, Ikea Festival will take place in other Ikea stores, with activities such as speed dating with home furnishing specialists, food trucks serving up the latest Ikea food offering, events in store and special offers for Ikea Family members.
Highlights include:
- On Aug. 26, Ikea Round Rock in Austin will be kicking off the festival with inspiration on how to transform your living area to co-create music, how to celebrate and make room for your instruments and music memorabilia both large and small, and an open floor disco showing how you can flex your living space into a dance floor.
- On Aug. 27, at Ikea Wien Westbahnhof in Vienna, learn how to make famous Viennese biscuits vegan style, join an upcycling workshop and see the live opening of a new curated shop within one of the store’s famous cubes.
- On Aug 28, Ikea Xuhui, Shanghai, will treat visitors to a visit to the homes of two home furnishing co-workers with a passion for handicraft and homemade food. They will show how to organise tools and materials for crafting, as well as how to make wall decorations from zero and finally how to make plum wine.
- On Sept. 2, at Ikea Brooklyn, New York, highlights include a fashion show in Köket showcasing the best of Brooklyn design and advice around workspace and storage solutions.
- On Sept. 3, Ikea Tempe, Sydney, will offer tips from an avid traveller on small space van living, fresh ideas from a vegan foodie on sustainable plant-based eating, and a live music set played on the Sydney Harbor.
- On Sept. 4, in Stockholm, the newly opened Ikea City in Gallerian offers a day of gaming online and in the store, with live interviews with gamers from the Swedish Gaming National team, and a visit to the home of a celebrity chef and to the home a former athlete who’s going to show off his hobby room and sneaker collection.
- On Sept. 8, Ikea City in Harajuku, Tokyo, offers three live-steam sessions to explore fashion tips from an upcoming fashion icon. Also, share your passion for collecting and be inspired by delicious but simple recipes.
- On Sept. 9, gaming will be the focus of the day in Ikea San Sebastian de los Reyes, Madrid, with a room makeover for a young gamer and a roundtable talk with a psychologist and Gen Z influencers regarding mental health and connected to gaming, sports and music.
- Finally, on Sept. 10, at Ikea Décoration, in Paris, viewers will meet a tufting expert, a florist building a Tiny House in the Vosges, and Milo, a cat like no other, shares his morning routine with his human.
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]]>Woodlands, Texas/Charlotte, N.C. — After announcing their partnership earlier this year, Conn’s. Inc. And Belk have officially launched their first store-within-a-store pilot concept in five Belk locations under the name Conn’s x Belk. The new store format provides Belk customers with access to Conn’s complementary home product categories, as well as core differentiators like industry-leading white-glove, next-day delivery.
Additional Conn’s x Belk locations are planned to open throughout the summer and early fall of 2022, along with an e-commerce experience coming to Belk.com this fall. The Conn’s x Belk locations feature a name brand assortment of all major Conn’s product categories including furniture, home electronics and appliances. The store-within-a-store format ranges from approximately 10,000 to 25,000 square feet depending on the Belk location.
“We’re thrilled that our first five Conn’s x Belk concept stores are open with more coming soon, giving us the opportunity to introduce new customers to Conn’s key differentiators, including our high-quality product assortment, white glove next-day delivery and in-house repair service,” said Chandra Holt, president and CEO of Conn’s. “This is an important step in our journey to scale, reimagine and strengthen our business.”
To celebrate the new shopping experience, all five of the Conn’s x Belk locations will hold grand opening celebrations on Saturday, Aug. 13, 10 a.m.–2 p.m. that will include giveaways, treats and music. Customers can experience the new Conn’s x Belk pilot at the following Belk locations, open now:
- West Town located at 7600 Kingston Pike in Knoxville, TN
- Triangle located at 7500 Old Wake Forest Road in Raleigh, NC
- Northlake located at 7115 Northlake Mall Drive in Charlotte, NC
- Ridgeland located at 1200 East County Line Road in Ridgeland, MS
- Charleston located at 2064 Sam Rittenberg Boulevard. in Charleston, SC
Additional locations are slated to open throughout the summer and early fall in Belk stores in existing Conn’s markets across the Southern U.S.
”We’re excited to create this new experience for our customers,” said Don Hendricks, interim CEO of Belk. “The great part about this partnership with Conn’s is that our customers now have access to products we didn’t sell in our stores. It’s a fantastic opportunity for them to get everything they need for their home in one convenient location.”
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]]>Tampa, Fla. — According to Littledata, home furnishings retailers need help when it comes to consumers adding products to their online shopping carts.
The e-commerce tracking resource surveyed 2,305 stores in March 2022 and found the average add-to-cart (ATC) rate was at 5%. It noted that anything more than 8.3% would be among the best 20% of stores it benchmarks for ATC rate, while more than 10.4% would be in the elite tier, the top 10%. Its survey revealed that the average ATC rate for furniture and homewares was just 3.46% in May 2022.
Because, a two-year-old digital brand, believes it has the potential to help retailers overcome the add-to-cart obstacle. Since it started in the summer of 2020, it has already helped more than 1,000 small to mid-sized e-commerce merchants boost their conversion rates.
Ashland Stansbury
“We help site visitors move through the buying journey on the site to conversion,” Ashland Stansbury, Because’s founder and CEO told Furniture Today. “The way we help is by placing targeted messaging that tells what consumers need throughout the process.”
Stansbury said when a consumer shops Amazon, even if she doesn’t buy the product she clicks on, Amazon serves her information about that product including cost, availability, shipping dates, specifications and more, as well as similar “you might also like” products. Because integrates onto the Shopify platform and serves consumers similar information.
“Amazon’s secret sauce is: If you’re not going to buy that product, they’re going to move you to another product to buy,” Stansbury said. “We’re serving retailers who sell tons of products. In that move-to-cart process, we serve up messaging like Amazon does that’s relevant to that product and that site visitor.
“We’re pairing product data with site visitor data and bringing those together to give the visitor what they need to make a decision on that product or to move onto another product and make a purchase there.”
She said, by giving consumers information, Because helps answer nearly every “no” that might arise. “The top 10 reasons why (consumers) are not purchasing are all related to missing, inaccurate or confusing information,” Stansbury said.
Because integrates with a Shopify site’s back end to automatically update all available product information as vendors add revisions. That’s one less worry for the retailer, which can focus instead on sales.
“From a customer perspective, the software is scalable for a store as they’re growing the catalog, growing sales and growing visitors,” she said. “We’re not an agency; we’re software. They’re using it themselves without code. They don’t need a developer to make updates. The updates come via back-end data. We have access to back-end data through all their SKUs.”
Stansbury said Because is a great fit for home furnishings retailers due to the high volume of available products they offer from a variety of vendors.
“The thing about the furniture industry is (these retailers) typically sell hundreds or thousands of products on their site,” she said. “That’s our sweet spot: the high volume of products that needs to be updated.”
Sam Marlow, director of British home furnishings retailer Lime Lace Interiors, said the company has had great success using Because to power its shoppable site.
“We use Because Intelligence app to create bespoke banners to highlight certain products in our portfolio. Not only for flash discount codes, but also to highlight certain products which have recently been seen in national publications to give our customers confidence in the products we sell,” Marlow said. “We love the simple and easy to use functionality that means we can update or create new banners without the need for developers and be responsive to the ever-developing world of home interiors.”
And as retailers learn more about Because and see how it works, Stansbury says she sees opportunities on additional platforms as well as new ways to tie into most-used retail applications.
“Our goal is to expand to all the other major e-commerce platforms so we serve more retailers. We’re focused on Shopify now because it’s such a big market. I see us expanding to BluCommerce, Magento, Salesforce, etc., allowing us to serve more merchants,” she said.
“We’re expanding from a partner perspective where we will be integrating into apps that merchants are using on a daily basis. If they’re using an inventory platform or shipping platform or email platform, those become additional touchpoints for us to integrate into their stack.”
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]]>Boston – He’s dressed the Duchess of Cambridge (aka Kate Middleton), her sister-in-law Megan and, most famously in the U.S., Michelle Obama when she was First Lady. Now, designer Jason Wu is bringing his perspective to a new collection for AllModern.
AllModern x Jason Wu launched today as a limited edition collection designed by Wu. The capsule assortment includes rugs, throws and pillows available exclusively online at AllModern.com and at the AllModern retail store in Lynnfield, Mass.
Designer Jason Wu’s collection for AllModern includes hand-tufted rugs and complementary pillows and throws.
Wu is known for merging classic American sportswear elements with a refined couture sensibility. Much of Wu’s apparel is manufactured in New York using custom-developed fabrics from mills in France and Italy.
“At AllModern, we believe good design should be the standard for all, not a luxury for the few. Jason Wu exudes this shared belief in everything he designs, and it made for such a natural, dynamic collaboration to bring this collection to the AllModern customer,” said Reena Person, head of the AllModern brand.
The home furnishings collection is inspired by architecture, mid-century design simplicity and modern artists Josef Albers and Mark Rothko. Rugs are hand-tufted from 100% wool and offered in a range of sizes. Complementary pillows and throws feature a variety of colorways for easy mixing and matching.
“I went in with a very specific point of view: something elevated and textural, that can fit in many different types of homes. I really believe good design is all about intention and how well the details are considered,” said Wu.
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]]>Union, N.J. – Just a little over a year after its launch, a multi-category house brand Bed Bath & Beyond created to attract young adults is dropping from the mix.
Wild Sage launched in June 2021 ahead of the Back-to-Campus season as a globally inspired lifestyle brand designed for “fashion-forward homes and dorm rooms.” The product range included bedding, bath, furniture, home décor and table linens.
Bed Bath & Beyond confirmed the Wild Sage phase-out to CNBC. Wild Sage was among nine house brands the retailer rolled out between February 2020 and May 2022. The steady stream of fresh labels failed to enthuse shoppers as reflected in waning sales and market share.
In June, newly appointed interim CEO Sue Gove said Bed Bath & Beyond plans to bring more national brands into its assortment. Gustavo Arnal, EVP and CFO, added that that some sub-categories within some brands were over-extended.
The company will provide “much more” information about its merchandising plans when it shares an update on its progress in late August, Gove said during BBB’s July 15 shareholder meeting.
In calls with investors following the ouster of Bed Bath & Beyond president and CEO Mark Tritton in June, the only house brand that has been mentioned as hitting the mark with consumers is Simply Essential – an opening price point brand that launched in early 2021.
See also:
Bed Bath & Beyond interim CEO: “We are working with urgency”
Merchandising alert: Bed Bath & Beyond plans to add more national brands back into the mix
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New York – Now is the time to think about coverage for your New York Home Fashions Market introductions and highlighted product.
New introductions are eligible to receive coverage in HTT’s print and online coverage in advance and during market week, which is taking place from Sept. 19-22.
DEADLINE is Wednesday, Aug. 31.
To be included in our coverage, please send the following:
- A brief written summary of your newest product introductions launching at the markets along with LOCATION information about where they will be shown.
- One or two high-res images of your new products WITH a written description of the product featured in each image sent. (*Please see specifications below)
- Your name and contact information (email and phone, please)
*Digital image requirements: Images should be at least 3-by-5 inches at 300 dpi (900-by-1,500 pixels), and preferably not larger than 8-by-10 inches (2,400-by- 3,000 pixels). We can ONLY accept images in the following formats: .JPG .TIFF .PSD and .EPS BUT we HIGHLY RECOMMEND sending your images in JPEG format, provided they conform to the specifications above. (This will reduce attachment sizes, making your email easier to send and receive.)
Submit your new product images and information by email to https://forms.pbmbrands.com/home-textiles-today/forms/NYMarket_Submissions_Fall_2022/
If you have questions, please contact HTT editor-in-chief Jennifer Marks at [email protected]
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]]>By Leigh Ann Schwarzkopf
Licensing is thriving, and home-related businesses might want to take a fresh look at how the business model can help augment or continue to build their portfolios.
Worldwide, licensed merchandise rang up more than $315.5 billion at retail in 2021, according to Licensing International’s 2022 Global Licensing Industry Study, released last week. This total figure is up 7.7 percent from 2019. In the US/Canada region, licensed merchandise rang up $186.3 billion, an increase of 9.7 percent from 2019.
“Following years stuck inside because of the pandemic, the home décor and housewares categories are more important to consumers than ever. And considering their recent growth—data from the study shows that revenue for home décor grew 15.6 percent from 2019 to 2021, while revenue for housewares grew 19.1 percent during the same period—these categories will continue to be of significant interest to the global licensing industry moving forward,” said Maura Regan, president of the trade association Licensing International.
If you have a notion that licensing is concerned mostly with superhero or kiddie cartoon properties, you’re half right, yet simultaneously sorely mistaken when it comes to home-related goods purchased by consumers.
A quick look at the overall data indeed suggests that product enhanced with a character/entertainment property, such as those from tentpole movies or television shows, comprised 41% of sales of the $315.5 billion global pie. The Walt Disney Company’s empire alone amasses $56.2 billion in all types of licensed goods, according to an estimation made by the trade resource License Global in its annual Top Global Licensors report. For sure, it can be said that epic movie trademarks and cute characters dominate certain playgrounds in the licensed merchandise multiverse.
But drill down in the study to our business universe, the realm of manufacturing, merchandising, and marketing home-related products, and a different scenario emerges.
For example, in the realm of licensed home décor goods sold in US/Canada, a $20.7 billion segment in 2021, publishing-rooted properties out-performed entertainment/character brands, $16.1 billion to $1.5 billion.
Of note is multiple IP owner Dotdash Meredith, home of the 100-year-old magazine Better Homes and Gardens. Its merchandising program sprouted at Walmart’s gardening department 24 years ago, and has since branched into 3,000 SKUs, spanning bedding, bath, patio, furniture, kitchen and dining, decor, paint, wallpaper, and lighting. Other Dotdash titles like Southern Living and Coastal Living also have merchandising programs residing at Dillard’s and other chains. As if this didn’t prove the scale of the Dotdash’s presence in homes, the licensor’s Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate affiliation cements the publisher’s place as the number two largest global licensor, with $35.9 billion in sales, second only to Disney, according to License Global.
But back to our world: Dotdash isn’t the only publishing game in store. Hearst (Cosmopolitan, House Beautiful, and Country Living), Playboy, and Lagardere (Elle Décor) each execute merchandising programs in brick-and-mortar retailers and online.
Interior Designers Can’t Be Overlooked
“In home-interiors categories, licensing has a meaningful role, especially when an upscale interior design name is the property,” said trend expert Michelle Lamb, founder of The Trend Curve. “Licensed collections can become catalysts for new color or design trends. In other situations, licenses provide a unique story for manufacturers or retailers to tell, helping to make their products stand out from the rest.”
Examples of interior designers who’ve made their mark as licensors within home décor include Alexa Hampton, Thomas O’Brien, Barbara Barry, Barclay Butera, and Kim Salmela.
“What Kim Salmela brings to us is an aesthetic that is fresh and unique, but not too far from our Norwalk key collections,” said Dixon Bartlett, chief creative officer, Norwalk Furniture, which has held the license since 2018. “Each season her designs have grown from the previous show, as our dealers become increasingly comfortable with her more casual West Coast vibe, and most importantly, as her key SKUs prove themselves to be winners at retail. Our dealers do talk to each other and when a few key dealers get behind any new design, it can have a very positive sales effect, as other possibly less risk-averse dealers become willing to stretch their aesthetic. For sure this has been the case with Kim’s designs, and why our partnership with her is strong and important to Norwalk.”
Other manufacturers echo the benefits of securing the right license for their business. “Our licensed brands, specifically Tommy Bahama (Home and Outdoor Living) and Barclay Butera have seen steady growth each year. These brands continue to prove their relevance in the home furnishings industry,” said Shannon Baugh, marketing manager for Lexington Home Brands. “We support this growth by adding to their portfolios with unique lifestyle collections on a regular basis. Each brand reflects significant diversity, while maintaining its core inspiration, adding to the overall appeal and strength of its name.”
In the $4.6 billion retail sales category of licensed housewares, corporate trademark properties outpaced those of character/entertainment properties, $2.2 billion to $639 million. Products manufactured under license from century-old, established household brands, such as KitchenAid bakeware and Maytag steam irons (both brands owned by Whirlpool), for example, seem to resonate more often with shoppers than character-laden merchandise does. Other venerable brand owners with licensed stakes in the housewares aisles: Frigidaire (owned by Electrolux), Braun and VICKS (owned by Procter & Gamble), and Arm & Hammer (from Church & Dwight), to name a few.
According to Licensing International’s analysis included in its latest research, “Words like nesting, “pantrying,” and home cooking took on a whole new meaning as the world adjusted to life at home in 2020 & 2021. Licensed product category focus clearly shifted with the times as respondents commented on the strong focus on the home décor, housewares, and food & beverage categories by the pandemic consumer.”
Gift-giving shoppers prefer character/entertainment properties slightly more than other types of trademark owners, the Licensing International study suggests. Within this $5.3 billion licensed goods gifts segment in the US/Canada, character/entertainment trademarks comprised $1.6 billion in sales, while sports licensors followed with $1.4 billion, and corporate trademark brands with $1.3 billion.
In the category of Lawn/Garden Tools/Hardware, there were two standout licensor-types raking in the majority of the $6.9 billion in retail sales of licensed merchandise sales in US/Canada. Publishing was king with its $4.2 billion pile, perhaps thanks to properties such as Dotdash’s Better Homes and Gardens expansion into heaters and bath hardware at Walmart, and its Southern Living line of branded plants, shrubs and trees at national DIY centers in the southeastern US. Also, Hearst’s House Beautiful partnered with Frontgate to co-design and curate three indoor and outdoor home furnishing collections, according to License Global.
The second most prevalent property was corporate trademarks, which amassed $1.6 billion. Licensors living in this category include hardware brands such as Stanley/Black and Decker, Goodyear, Roto-Rooter, and Rust-Oleum. Much like housewares, this product category of Lawn/Garden Tools/Hardware also gained more than 19% in global licensing revenue from 2019, the data suggests.
Building a resilient business in today’s market requires exploring many ways to reach consumers. Licensing can help achieve those goals as is demonstrated by the robust performance at retail.
Leigh Ann Schwarzkopf is the founder of Project Partners Network, which offers extensive experience and top management-level expertise in all areas of licensing.
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Kathryn Lawrie
Denver – Bode & Well, the recently launched lifestyle brand, has hired its first president.
The product development arm of Trio, a design and visual merchandising firm, has named Kathryn Lawrie president. Lawrie brings more than 16 years’ experience in product development, licensing, sales and corporate marketing
Prior to joining the organization, Lawrie was VP of licensing and corporate marketing for Springs Creative, handling multi-million-dollar budgets with Disney, Marvel, Nintendo, Microsoft/Minecraft, Universal, Paramount, Nickelodeon and more. Experienced in design, development, sourcing and procurement, her career began in the gift and home industry where she led several home textile and decorative accessory brands, both licensed and proprietary.
Partnering with U.S. manufacturers, Bode & Well products will first launch in traditional wholesale markets to retailers as well as trade and commercial accounts.
“Seeing products come to life from the ideation stage through a full product lifecycle from design to manufacturing, every decision can impact the consumer journey,” Lawrie said.
The Bode & Well to-the-trade site’s curated collections currently include bedding, fabrics, tile, furniture and art.
“Over the last couple of years, we’ve made a series of strategic hires to establish our portfolio of brands with the purpose of super-serving our clients in both the commercial and model home industries. We want to provide not only the best possible design, but the best possible products and merchandising to our loyal client base,” said Angela Harris, Trio principal and CEO.
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This 3-piece comforter set from Macy’s Akwaaba Inns for Hotel Collection features a digitally printed lace-like pattern on Pima cotton.
New York – Hospitality entrepreneur Monique Greenwood, former Essence magazine editor-in-chief, is applying her eye for distinctive design to Macy’s Hotel Collection.
The retailer today announced the launch of a limited edition collection that reflects the sensibilities of Akwaaba Bed and Breakfast Inns, which are sited in architecturally-rich buildings in New Orleans, Cape May, N.J., Washington DC, Philadelphia, The Pocono Mountains and Brooklyn, N.Y.
The curated Akwaaba Inns for Hotel Collection includes bedding, pillows, throws, duvets, bath towels, robes, slippers and tabletop. Prices range from $22.99-$259.99, and the line is now on macys.com, Macy’s mobile app and at select Macy’s department stores nationwide.
Akwaaba Bed & Breakfast Inn’s printed kimono for the Macy’s Hotel collection is made from 100% Tencel with a Pima cotton hem.
“I’m overjoyed to offer style-conscious consumers everywhere the kind of sumptuous bed and bath items and elegant tabletop pieces that lead to unforgettable experiences, which is what we’re all about at Akwaaba Bed & Breakfast Inns,” said Greenwood, founder and CEO of Akwaaba Bed & Breakfast Inns. “This collaboration with Macy’s is the manifestation of a vision-board goal I’ve had for nearly eight years.”
Designs in the collection include geometric patterns and textures in natural fabrics and earthy hues that aim to deliver a “global meets modern luxe” vibe.
Tabletop in the new collection includes glassware, trays, coasters, appetizer plates and a tea pot.
Stephanie Muehlhausen, Macy’s senior fashion director for home, lauded Greenwood’s unique style in home décor.
“As part of our social purpose platform, Mission Every One, we are committed to partnering with diverse designers and using Macy’s platform to showcase their talents,” she added. “This latest collaboration will provide our customers with more modern choices to express their personal style at home.”
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