WORKFORCE

More Retailers Are Giving Employees Time to Vote

Retailers once limited their acknowledgment of an election cycle to “Vote” merch—if they addressed it at all. Now, a growing number of businesses are entering the conversation by encouraging higher voter turnout among their workers.

Walmart, Nike, J.Crew, and Warby Parker are a sample of retail brands that joined the Time to Vote coalition this year. It’s a nonpartisan pledge to do exactly what it says: Give employees time off to cast their ballots. 

• Time to Vote launched ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, with Patagonia, Levi Strauss, and PayPal as its founding members. 400+ businesses joined that year.
• Patagonia CMO Corley Kenna told Retail Brew that 700 businesses are now Time to Vote members. 

End goals: First, a business culture that prioritizes civic duty. Second, 1,000 member companies by Election Day, said Marc Rosen, Levi Strauss executive vice president and president of Levi Strauss Americas. 

Making retail count

Only 56% of Americans who were eligible to vote cast a ballot in the 2016 election per the Pew Research Center, which is lower than in most developed countries.

So retailers are a significant addition to Time to Vote: retail employs roughly 29 million Americans in stores, fulfillment centers, and corporate offices, making it the biggest private sector employer in the U.S. 

For companies that join the campaign, there’s no prescriptive voting plan. “We realized early on that what works for Patagonia is not going to work for Walmart, what works for Walmart is not going to work for Lyft, and so on,” said Sarah Bonk, founder and CEO of Business for America, a corporate civic responsibility organization affiliated with Time to Vote.  

So retailers have varied their approaches. 

• In stores: Some brands are closing stores entirely (Patagonia) while others are shortening operating hours (Best Buy) or offering three paid hours to vote (Walmart).
• At corporate: Brands are considering meeting-free days (Nike) or full days off (J.Crew). 

Bonk and Kenna noted that the pandemic has raised concerns about crowding at the polls—so brands are also teaching employees about absentee and mail-in voting. 

Extra significance

Supporting voters is yet another way brands are addressing recent calls to do business with more than profits in mind.

From inside: “Your CEO or your company reminding you to vote [...] is going to hit your inbox in a different way than an email from a campaign or an advocacy group,” Kenna said. Those efforts could build trust with employees, Bonk added. 

From outside: “Consumers are increasingly loyal to brands that take a strong stance around the issues that resonate with them, including voting,” said Rosen. When brands balance profits with advocacy, “That’s how they drive growth, strengthen their brand, and keep their people inspired and engaged.”

E-COMM

Athleisure's Most Wanted

SimilarWeb exclusively shared the ten fastest-growing athleisure brands by site traffic in Q2 with Retail Brew. So far, the work(out) from home movement is trending in indie brands’ favor. 

• Alo Yoga topped the list with 131.5% quarter-to-quarter traffic growth; Vuori Clothing followed with 93.1%.
• Nike led the biggest brands with a 92.7% jump, while Lululemon and Fabletics logged at least 50% increases.
• DTC brands including Outdoor Voices, Gymshark, and Public Rec notched more than 30% growth each.

^SimilarWeb

All those clicks are another sign of athleisure’s resilience in a saggy apparel market. Traffic across the top ten athleisure retailers spiked 13% above holiday levels in May as shoppers adopted comfier dress codes—and consumers have sustained those levels since. 

Side stretches: If you give a quarantiner some leggings, she’ll want a spin bike to go with it. “I expect at-home workout machines to follow this same [traffic] trend,” Jamie Drayton, lead retail consultant at SimilarWeb, told Retail Brew. “As [Lululemon’s Mirror acquisition] shows us, these two categories are closely linked.”

My takeaway: The halo effect from COVID-19 trends may not crown a new athleader by market share, but it’s increasing traffic to smaller brands when they need it most.

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Your HR team will be thrilled that they no longer have to hunt some people down (*cough Phil from sales cough*) and remind them to enroll in benefits. Now, employees can have all of their benefits right at their fingertips and handle their enrollment needs on the go.

This enrollment season, give your HR team (and your entire business) a little TLC and try Paycom today.

REAL ESTATE

Will the Pandemic Sink Flagships?

Krispy Kreme is moving forward with plans to open a Times Square flagship next month, CNN Business reports. During a normal year, this flagship’s glaze waterfall and 4,560 fresh donuts per hour would’ve appeared on every middle school band’s NYC trip itinerary. 

But it’s 2020, and tourists are avoiding Times Square like native New Yorkers.  

• Visits to Times Square declined 91% YoY in April; by July, visits were still down 83% per Times Square Alliance data. 
• Krispy Kreme CEO Mike Tattersfield said the flagship won’t hit original sales projections.

So why move forward? Krispy Kreme’s still bullish on its potential to expand in NYC after its five smaller stores met expectations. The brand introduced donut delivery in February, so its flagship could fulfill mobile orders until foot traffic returns. 

That’s not an option for everyone. Without the revenue from souvenir tees, retailers from San Francisco (Gap) to NYC (Neiman Marcus) are closing their flagship locations. So long as the pandemic keeps tourists trapped at home, similar shopping destinations are in jeopardy.

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• Amazon is now fulfilling online orders for Toys "R" Us.
• CVS launched an in-house ad network. 
• Beauty brands are experimenting with outdoor pop-up shops.
• Finematter, an online retailer for fine jewelry, raised 1+ million euros in a pre-launch funding round.

BUSINESS PROFESSIONAL

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Brand mixology: For Extremely Online brands waffling between offline growth opportunities, this margin mix tool should help you choose your IRL channel mix. 

Has an online course, store plugin, or other resource I haven’t named transformed your business? Let me know so I can share it in an upcoming Retail Brew.

SWAPPING SKUS

Time for a name-brand break with two informative reads on the state of small businesses.

• Boutiques from Texas to Washington state are facing the same operational ultimatum: Go online, or go out of business. (AP)
• Multilevel marketing retailers (MLMs) are on a seller recruiting spree during the pandemic. Their ideal workers? College students. (InsideHook)

ICYMI

Catch up on the Retail Brew stories you may have missed.

• Declining Store Traffic Threatens TJX’s Treasure Hunt Store Experience
• How Warby Parker Defines Corporate Responsibility in 2020
• Is Content the Key to Building Brand Communities?