Gary HawkinsMay 26, 20204 minMaybe Bigger is Not Always BetterAs the COVID-19 crisis continues to hammer the supermarket industry, we must ask ourselves if bigger is necessarily better. Panic buying...
Gary HawkinsApr 23, 20203 minWhen Sapiens Go Shopping: Customer Cognition at the Speed of ThoughtPublished by Winsight Grocery Business, April 22, 2022 Life on earth developed over millions of years, rising from the primordial soup:...
Gary HawkinsApr 13, 20204 minOpportunity LostI have spent many years of my life as a retailer so I hopefully have more empathy than most for what retailers are going through during...
Gary HawkinsMar 29, 20204 minA Retail Mindstep like None Before: The COVID-19 CrisisMindsteps, a construct created by astronomer Gerald Hawkins (no relation) several decades ago, refer to irreversible shifts in thinking...
Gary HawkinsMar 28, 20203 minIdentity Management in Retail: Its Time Has ComeIdentity management is set to explode as archaic state laws governing age-restricted sales of alcohol and other products play catch-up as...
Gary HawkinsMar 28, 20204 minThree Innovation Imperatives for RetailersThe transformation of brick-and-mortar retail to the new digital world is not without its trials and tribulations. Walmart has recently...
Gary HawkinsMar 28, 20204 min10 Resolutions for Retailers in 2020As we begin a new decade, I’d like to offer up a handful of resolutions retail industry executives may want to adopt: Resolve to reflect...
Gary HawkinsMar 28, 20204 minGrocery E-Commerce 2.0 Update: Little ProgressEighteen months ago, I wrote a piece about why retailers’ first-generation efforts to move online were not enough, that many retailers...
Gary HawkinsFeb 22, 20194 minHeading Into Retail in the Age of ‘I’We are entering the age of "I"—a time when the world is increasingly tailored to each of us individually. We’ve come to regard this...
Gary HawkinsFeb 1, 20194 minThree Keys for Mastering InnovationAs anyone who attended CES or NRF in the opening weeks of this year can attest, tech-fueled innovation is speeding up. We see robots...
Gary HawkinsOct 9, 20183 minPseudo Customer Centricity: Fool’s GoldMany regional retailers are (at last!) intent on becoming customer-centric, more than a decade after The Kroger Co. led the way and more...
Gary HawkinsAug 16, 20183 minReal-Time Insights on Amazon Prime and Whole Foods IntegrationIt’s been a year since Amazon acquired Whole Foods Market, triggering a grocery industry innovation war and a stampede online. While...
Gary HawkinsAug 4, 20182 minAmazon Prime at Whole Foods: What’s the Impact?When Amazon acquired Whole Foods a year or so ago, many industry pundits speculated that Amazon would extend its Prime loyalty program to...
Gary HawkinsJul 21, 20183 minCustomer Touch Points and the Human ExperienceI was visiting someone in the hospital the other day and, looking about the room, noticed an Amazon Echo installed on the wall opposite...
Gary HawkinsJul 11, 20184 minThe Amazon Doctrine and the Innovation Arms RaceAmazon CEO Jeff Bezos has long understood the value of being out in front as technology innovation fundamentally alters the rules of...
Gary HawkinsJun 20, 20184 minLeveraging Shopper Insights From Chaos to ActionMultidimensional shopper data is the new primordial ooze giving rise to powerful insights leading to increased retail performance. Novel...
Gary HawkinsMay 18, 20184 minE-Commerce 2.0 Comes of AgePrimed by studies projecting 20% of industry sales moving online within the next few years and triggered by Amazon’s aggressive moves to...
Gary HawkinsMay 4, 20184 minLooking for Sales Growth? Be Relevant to Your ShoppersEvery retailer is looking to increase sales, and there is no better way to do that than by providing savings on products each customer...
Gary HawkinsApr 18, 20184 minThe Convergence of Food and HealthFood represents an estimated $5 trillion a year industry in the United States. Nearly everywhere we look in the physical world—and...
Gary HawkinsFeb 23, 20183 minTackling Retail’s Big Data ChallengeData has long powered modern retail, helping Walmart become a master of supply chain logistics and fueling Kroger’s customer-centric...
Gary HawkinsFeb 7, 20183 minThe 3 Immutable Laws of Retail InnovationEveryone in the retail industry, from the cashier to the CEO, knows that transformation and disruption are changing the way we shop. But...
Gary HawkinsFeb 3, 20183 minHealthcare and Food Align to Benefit the IndividualThe personalized wellness vision aligns managed care organizations, healthcare providers, employers, food manufacturers and retailers to...
Gary HawkinsJan 25, 20183 minPersonalized Wellness: A Virtual DietitianHealthcare has made valiant efforts to guide consumers to beneficial foods, only to find the information quickly forgotten within hours...
Gary HawkinsJan 18, 20183 minHealth and Wellness Gets PersonalAs a nation, we spend over $5 trillion a year to feed our bodies. That’s the value of food sold each year in the United States through...
Gary HawkinsJan 4, 20183 minMany Retailers Are Asking the Wrong Question About Personalized OffersYears ago, I remember some retailers boasting that they had no advertising expense. These retailers were charging brands for ad placement...
Gary HawkinsDec 21, 20173 minPoor Personalization Will Cost YouAmazon’s business serves one master: the customer. Everything the company does is focused on securing a growing portion of each...
Gary HawkinsDec 19, 20173 minWhy Customer Experience Is the Defining Digital BattlegroundThere is no better example of how a traditional supermarket retailer must change to remain competitive in today’s world than that...
Gary HawkinsDec 13, 20173 minHow Personalization is Reshaping the Shopping ExperienceAmazon, the nemesis of brick & mortar retailers, is a master at helping shoppers discover relevant products the shopper may be interested...
Gary HawkinsDec 6, 20173 minLet’s Get Personal: Digital Customer Engagement in Supermarket RetailAs physical brick-and-mortar shopping melds with the digital world, customer experience is the defining battleground since shoppers can...