Inside Versed’s new pop-up in New York City, you’ll see skincare-themed merch like an I Retinol sweatshirt, a new iteration of its viral croissant headband merchandised alongside actual bakery items, and shelves adorned with the pale-pink packaging of its retinol line, including its latest launch, a retinol body butter.

The new product is the result of a revved-up innovation rate that began when beauty industry vet Kerry Sullivan joined as its CEO in early 2023, she told Retail Brew. Before Versed, Sullivan was CMO of Dollar Shave Club for just under two years, and prior to that spent over 17 years at Johnson & Johnson, most recently as the vice president of marketing and general manager for Neutrogena.

“One thing that I was lucky to pull from Neutrogena is just an understanding of how a brand evolves strategically and how much growth headroom there is for smaller brands,” Sullivan said. “That growth appetite from being on a bigger brand I can bring to smaller brands to allow it to move faster.”

Skin in the game: The newest product for Versed, founded by Merit Beauty founder and Who What Wear co-founder Katherine Power in 2018, is Press Restart Advanced Retinol Body Butter, sold at Target for $19.99. To support the launch, the brand hosted its first retail pop-up, Press Restart Cafe, for three days this month in New York City.

Keep reading here.—EC

The quickest way to level up your retail game? Enlist influencers and affiliates. Influencers promote your brand, showcase products, and make your biz the talk of the town. But creating a successful program requires some know-how.

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We’ve covered how inventory management is one of the most critical components of running a retail operation—whether online, IRL, or omnichannel.

However, upstream of inventory management comes with warehouse and logistics management that controls the flow of products throughout a business’s supply chain. While workers are often key to an efficient and smooth logistics operation, warehouse management systems (WMS) are also critical to streamlining the supply chain and identifying operational errors and gaps.

What kind of WMS a retailer uses can vary depending on size, scale, and the nature of the business, but are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Some of the most commonly implemented WMSs are stand-alone, enterprise resource planning (ERP) modules, supply-chain modules, and cloud-based.

Keep reading here.—KM

The Consumer Price Index rose 0.4% in February, the highest monthly boost since September, following a 0.3% increase in January, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.

Prices increased 3.2% year over year, 0.1% higher than economists predicted and up from last month’s 3.1% rise. Energy costs pushed up inflation, while some consumer products categories cooled.

Food inflation was up 2.2% YoY, but flat month over month for the first time since April 2023, while food away from home inched up just 0.1% from January. Inflation for three of the six major grocery indexes—dairy, fruits and vegetables, and nonalcoholic beverages—cooled in February. After decreasing 0.2% in January, cereals and bakery products rose 0.5%, while prices for meats, poultry, fish, and eggs also rose 0.1%—and eggs jumped 5.8% from January.

Keep reading here.—EC

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