We know that last week, each and every one of you were able to catch our discussion with JCPenney’s chief customer officer Katie Mullen, right? Right???

If you didn’t, you should check it out, but we’re going to highlight some of the key takeaways from our talk about the online customer experience. Mullen, who previously served as Neiman Marcus’s chief digital officer, joined JCPenney in January 2022 under the same title.

Mullen’s title change to chief customer officer earlier this year underscores JCPenney’s commitment to shaping its customer experience into a holistic vision that incorporates the digital and physical spaces.

It’s personal: Personalization is one of the key components in creating a valuable customer experience. Mullen emphasized; however, that personalization cannot be purely algorithmic because savvy consumers can sniff that out pretty easily.

• This entails understanding that a shopper that has bought a black T-shirt might be outfitting and looking for a bottom to complement it. Or, if a customer is browsing jewelry, offering them information on different cuts of diamonds, while also keeping their budget and timing in mind.

Keep reading here.—KM

Morning Brew informs, educates, and connects with an engaged audience of 22m+ people monthly. That’s a lottt of viz, especially considering that 92% of ’em engage with Morning Brew on a daily basis, compared to only 15% with other competitive publications.

Wanna tap into our unique community of young, hard-to-reach readers (who, btw, are 1.7x more likely to have a household income of $150k+)?

Morning Brew connects brands to our audience through information and inspiration, using our voice to tell your story in our ever-growing newsletters, booming multimedia content, popular events, and so much more.

Our content is smart, never boring, and easy to access, and our audience trusts us to deliver what they need in a way that feels authentic. Picture your brand woven into all that potential. Sound exciting? We think so too.

Work with us.

Carhartt’s making good on its promise to expand its resale offering that we reported on in March.

The Dearborn, Michigan-based workwear company plans on expanding the platform, called Reworked, to all stores in July and a mail-in option starting in October, the company told Retail Brew. The offering has been piloted in six stores across the United States.

• With Reworked, Carhartt became the latest company to team up with resale platform Trove. Other Trove partners include Canada Goose, REI, Lululemon, and Patagonia.

After teaming up with Carhartt, Trove released its first annual Brand Resale Index, highlighting industry leaders in the space across 40 brands and four verticals. REI was found to be the overall category leader.

• The other leaders in outdoor, fashion/apparel, footwear, and luxury were Arc’teryx, Amour Vert, On, and Philip Lim, respectively.

Keep reading here.—KM

Believe it or not, we’ve reached the halfway point of 2023, and we’re marking the occasion this week by taking a look back at our coverage so far this year. We’re starting, appropriately enough, with Q1, when we covered future predictions, robots in retail, and supply chains.

Were people still interested in the metaverse all the way back in 2021 January? We were certainly interested in what Web3 moves brands might be considering for the coming year. We were also very interested—and still are—in what insiders had to say about the immediate future of resale, and ​​discount and off-price retail. Of course, we were at NRF’s Big Show, where retailers had some predictions of their own.

Keep reading here.—EW

Some of our favorite recent retail reads from our sibling Brews.

More than meats the eye: There are plenty of unconventional economic benchmarks out there, so why not beef? (CFO Brew)

A thing of beauty: The inside story of South Asian-focused makeup company Kulfi Beauty and its founder, Estée Lauder and Ipsy veteran Priyanka Ganjoo. (Marketing Brew)

Pray smell: Pricy perfume seems to be having a moment. Is it a post-pandemic frenzy or something known as the “lipstick effect”? (Morning Brew)

Retail radar: Want in-the-know details on what’s trending, trailing, and sticking around in retail? Download Marigold’s Retail Consumer Trends Index to peep the stats and meet your customers where they are.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}