Outdoor retailer REI’s announcement that it will remain closed on Black Friday could turn into a case study in holiday marketing. That’s because it is a brilliant marketing move cloaked within a nice gesture. So, in a way, everyone wins.  Continue reading →

It’s hard to believe, but Black Friday in its current gonzo incarnation has been around less than a decade. It was in the mid-2000s when big box retailers like Target, Walmart, Kohls, Best Buy and Macy’s began tinkering with the carved-in-stone formula of beginning the official Christmas shopping season at 6 a.m. on the day after Thanksgiving. It was then that the stores began opening their doors at midnight on Thanksgiving Day. Giddy at the results, both in terms of sales but as importantly, media coverage, these nationwide retailers in 2012 began opening at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day itself — sheer blasphemy in prior times. Continue reading →

E. coli is one item that nobody orders off the menu. But sometimes, like bad customer service, you get it, anyway.

So far, the tally of customers who have become ill from eating at Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurants in the Portland, Ore., area and several counties in Washington State from Oct. 14-23 stands at 37 people.

It was scary news for consumers, of course — E. coli is a bacterium that can cause bloody diarrhea, dehydration and even kidney failure — but the headlines are also frightening for business owners whose trade is in food. If you work in the food industry, here are some lessons from Chipotle’s crisis.

Chipotle Mexican Grill is temporarily closing more than 40 restaurants in and around Washignton and Oregon, as health officials investigate an E. coli outbreak.(Photo by Steve Dykes/Getty Images)

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