Welcome to The Merchant Life, where founders, VPs, and C-Suite executives come to seek out valuable merchandising insights.

They also come to get the latest news and developments on our side.

We’re happy to bring all the recent happenings at Retail Strategy Group to your attention.

Accessorize and Thrive

The Accessories Council will host its 8th annual ‘Business Workshop’ on November 10th, 2022. The business workshop was created to inspire, inform and provide ideas to help member companies endure an ever-changing retail environment.

Liza will be interviewed by our great friend and colleague, Tony Drockton, in a session titled “Don’t Stop Believing - 5 Principles for Product Success.”

When: 8:00am - 4:30pm | Nov. 10, 2022
Where: Hearst Tower, 3rd Floor Auditorium | 300 W 57th | New York City
Details: Event summary and ticket information are found here.

The Running Event

Every retailer has a different strategy for building its product assortment. Some have strong private label programs, while others are successful with accessories. Regardless of the strategy, the assortment must be profitable.

Now, the question is: How do you create a winning product assortment? The key is that assortments built with the customer as the focal point are the most profitable. That leads to questions about product testing, sampling, and minimum order quantities.

As such, we are excited to deliver two presentations at The Running Event!

First, “The Product Assortment Playbook” discusses the basics of a profitable product assortment. Second, “Going Private (Label)” discusses starting a private label program.

When: Nov. 29th to Dec. 2nd, 2022
Where: Austin Convention Center | Austin, TX
Details: The full event guide can be found here.

Podcasts and Quotables

We kicked off a new educational series in partnership with Footwear Plus. Belinda Pina, VP of Wainscot Media, hosts Liza in this Retail Strategy Series. The first video was recently released, and the topic of conversation is planning a private-label assortment. Our second video with Belinda has already been recorded and will be released soon.

Liza also joined our colleague, Andrew Smith, for a conversation on The Retailistic Podcast earlier in the month. We discussed our six principles of Product Creation by Subtraction.

Finally, Liza was quoted in several media outlets during October. Here is a selection of three articles of interest where Liza contributed her thoughts:

🗞️Footwear News - Analysts Are Upbeat About Adidas

🗞️New York Times - Retailers’ Holiday Wish

🗞️Reuters - Retailers Fill Shelves With Leftover Holiday Inventory

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Volume 36 of our monthly newsletter will be released on November 1st. We will be discussing the evolution of the product creation calendar.

And retailers that evolve accordingly will experience breakthrough results in accelerating speed to market.

You won’t want to miss this edition of The Merchant Life!