November 18, 2020

Restaurants Rise Again

Out of Necessity, the New Replaces the Old

Authors Mark Bateman VP, Business Development WD Partners Lee Peterson EVP, Thought Leadership & Marketing WD Partners Ok, we get it. Restaurants got clocked this year. No one escaped the ‘non-essential’ tag and everyone paid a price. However, amidst all this, we saw a resilience from some, a certain toughness forged from necessity but leaning...

November 18, 2020

Research Issue 46

Can Customers Predict Sales? Answer: Duh!

Authors John Bajorek EVP, Strategic Growth & Innovation WD Partners Tara Yavorsky VP, Marketing WD Partners We’d be remiss to not have some sort of “look back on 2020” article in this year’s Holiday issue of Wayfind. Especially given the WTF kind of year this one has been. Phew! The pandemic has done a number...

November 18, 2020

Research Issue 46

We Told You So: Why Wasn’t the World Ready for BOPIS?

Author Lee Peterson EVP, Thought Leadership & Marketing WD Partners Talking to a client last week, they said, “Boy, WD Partners is like the Oracle of Ohio, eh?” I’m like, “Ok, what does that mean?” Client says, “well, you guys talked about how important BOPIS was / is for years, you called the ‘store as...

September 16, 2020

Research Issue 45

The Store of the Future Is Not a Store

People don’t have to go to stores anymore, they have to want to go to stores

Author Lee Peterson EVP, Thought Leadership & Marketing WD Partners Although we've been talking about that statement for quite some time now, this year has really taken it to another level. Store and mall traffic were at all-time lows in 2019 but boy, would we take those numbers now. Many retailers were closed, literally closed...

July 14, 2020

Research Issue 44

How to Reorganize Like a 21st Century Business

Authors Joanne Heyob SVP, Operations Strategy & Design WD Partners John Bajorek EVP, Strategic Growth & Innovation WD Partners Lee Peterson EVP, Thought Leadership & Marketing WD Partners We recently heard someone say that the Coronavirus didn’t disrupt retail—it actually accelerated retail. We couldn’t agree more. Brands have been catapulted into a dramatic state of...

July 14, 2020

Research Issue 44

WD’s State of Shopping Research

Author Lee Peterson EVP, Thought Leadership & Marketing WD Partners No one truly knows what will happen post-COVID, mostly because we haven’t reached the post part yet. The country has tried to make some semblance of a reopening happen to various levels, but most would agree that we’re not where we all want to be...