Sally Beauty takes AR hair color experience to stores | Sysco purchases Armstrong Produce, Kula Produce | Insight Enterprises to relocate Ariz. headquarters
Sally Beauty, with Perfect Corp.'s technology, is introducing augmented-reality kiosks in 500 stores across the country to allow shoppers to virtually try out its hair dyes. The kiosks enable people to experience different hair colors via video, take shareable selfies and the AR feature is also available on the brand's app.
E-commerce fulfillment centers can reduce costs by using better layouts, such as putting mezzanines over work areas and locating picking modules on higher levels, writes Brian Barry, president of F. Curtis Barry & Co. He also recommends basing slotting on the fastest-selling units and doing regular reassessments.
Salespeople who are aware of their prospects' budgets will have a better idea of the short- and medium-term plans for potential buyers, writes Sean McPheat. This knowledge is also valuable as it helps salespeople find ways to ensure their solutions can fit into their prospects' purchasing plans, McPheat writes.
Eighty percent of frequent business-to-business buyers have changed suppliers one or more times within a two-year period because of dissatisfaction with service levels, according to an Accenture Interactive study that suggests B2B sellers are not adequately combining human interactions with digital experiences. Sellers should employ new technology to access data that will help bolster engagement, combine digital and human-focused communications and focus on changing processes from within to become more service-oriented, study authors say.
Organizational change cannot succeed without universal buy-in, new thinking and overcoming entrenched bureaucracy and habits, among other key steps, writes Art Petty. "Top leaders must work tirelessly to reduce or eliminate the sources of friction in the environment to enable change," he writes.
Join us today at 2 p.m. ET for our "Welcome to the Age of B2B Innovation" webinar featuring Mark Dancer and Mike DeCata, President and CEO of Lawson Products. They will talk about ways that distributors can lead in this age of B2B innovation to defeat disruption and reinvigorate our business economy through digital transformation. This webinar promises big ideas and major takeaways for your business. Register to attend live or to receive a webinar recording.
Register today for the NAW 2020 Executive Summit: INNOVATE TO DOMINATE, January 28-30, 2020! Our program will provide for you a road map to innovation. You'll ignite your innovative mindset as you peer into the future of wholesale distribution, explore marketplace platforms, and examine the points of view of today's business experts and next-generation distribution entrepreneurs who are creating new business models to satisfy industry and customer needs, and create new demand. Get all the details and register today!
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