Amid supply chain bottlenecks overseas, Canada is facing a significant shortage of imported liquor, leading provincial liquor authorities to encourage early, local shopping for holiday favourites. According to Professor Saibal Ray, Academic Director of the Bensadoun School of Retail Management, the ongoing scarcity of transportation resources is only making the shortage more acute.
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Between historically high levels of demand and ongoing supply shortages, holiday shoppers will have to get creative with their gift-giving this year, says Charles de Brabant, Executive Director of the Bensadoun School of Retail Management. As delayed shipments and back orders become the new normal, consumers may have to wait until February or March 200 for heavily discounted wish list items to finally hit the shelves.
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Congratulations to Maxime Cohen, Professor of Retail and Operations Management, whose paper "The Effect of Short-Term Rentals on Residential Investment“ was selected as Best Conference Paper Nominee at the 2021 Conference on Information Systems and Technology (CIST)
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In light of ongoing supply chain bottlenecks and labour shortages, businesses may not offer their deepest discounts this holiday season. According to Professor Saibal Ray, the Academic Director of the Bensadoun School of Retail Management, 2021 sales will signal whether many retailers can stay afloat despite production delays.
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As retailers anticipate a welcome uptick in sales amid the holiday shopping season, manufacturing and delivery delays continue to limit just how much profit retailers can expect.
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Sequoia Capital recently valued the luxury fashion e-commerce platform, Ssense, at $4.1 billion. Charles de Brabant, Executive Director of the Bensadoun School of Retail Management, attributes the company’s success to its ability to appeal to its Gen Z and millennial target audience. This decision is a marked contrast to many other luxury retailers who try to satisfy too many consumer groups, he says.
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In a new paper, Professor Maxime Cohen and his colleagues find that rental platforms like Airbnb help increase real estate investment and economic development in the long term. While jurisdictions like New York City have issued city-wide bans on these short-term rentals, primarily due to housing shortages, the researchers recommend establishing guidelines that meet community needs on a more local basis.
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With online shopping more convenient than ever, Anwar White, Program Director of the Master of Management in Retailing, discusses how retailers have adapted their strategy around Black Friday to drive innovation, offering lessons for future leaders in retail.
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Anticipating supply shortages, consumers began shopping for holiday gifts as early as September, says Charles de Brabant, Executive Director of the Bensadoun School of Retail Management. Looking ahead to Black Friday, he predicts huge crowds and empty shelves amid surging demand.
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With a simple app download, customers can shop in-person at several Couche-Tard stores in Arizona without even taking out their credit card. And, with new contactless technology, stores can track which items consumers remove from the shelves in real time. Couche-Tard continues to work closely with the Retail Innovation Lab at McGill to study this technology’s impact on consumer behavior and retail profits, with the hope of expanding the system to additional stores across the country.
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The Retail Innovation Lab at McGill University in partnership with Alimentation Couche-Tard has been officially inaugurated by Lucie Lecours, Quebec’s Minister of the Economy. As the first of its kind in the world dedicated to on-the-ground simulation research for retail technology, the lab represents monumental progress and future growth for the Bensadoun School of Retail Management and its industry collaborators.
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In the race to cut down on global carbon emissions, many experts are turning their attention to automotive manufacturers and their customers. As a potential solution to slowing the vehicle supply chain, Professor Saibal Ray, Academic Director at the Bensadoun School of Retail Management, suggests a collective pivot toward car rentals or other ride-share services in place of purchasing personal vehicles. The move would significantly decrease the number of cars in factories and on the road.
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COVID-19 caused massive shifts in the way we do even the most mundane of things. Take grocery shopping, for example. This past October, Dr. Yu Ma, Associate Professor of Marketing and Academic Director of the Master of Management in Retailing (MMR), spoke at Grocery Innovations Canada. Here, he shared his insights on how COVID-19 has transformed the grocery shopping environment and what retailers can do to mitigate shopping anxiety and provide a positive shopping experience for consumers.
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With e-commerce here to stay, dynamic pricing algorithms are adjusting what individual consumers pay for their items online using a complex system of price comparisons and purchase histories. In a new episode of the podcast "In Machines We Trust,” produced by MIT Technology Review, Professor Maxime Cohen recommends clearer regulations for data collection to better protect the privacy and fair pricing experience of consumers.
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Through its partnership with the retail innovation lab, Alimentation Couche-Tard is working steadily to develop frictionless shopping solutions using AI tracking and smartphone technology.
Now, the company is expanding its efforts to pioneer a new customer experience as Circle K, one of its daughter brands, rolls out a fully frictionless option in several Arizona stores.