Even before the global COVID-19 pandemic hit, retailers across the country were already prioritizing charitable giving despite the existing downward trend in sales and revenue. With the recent global COVID-19 pandemic and...more
8/21/2020
/ Charitable Donations ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Economic Downturn ,
Infectious Diseases ,
Manufacturers ,
Medical Supplies ,
Personal Protective Equipment ,
Philanthropy ,
Retailers ,
Tax Deductions ,
Tax Planning
Although online shopping is extremely convenient, many consumers still want to touch and test out products before they purchase them. Since 2015, Amazon, with its first brick and mortar Amazon Books store, has made its way...more
2/21/2020
/ Amazon Marketplace ,
Books ,
Brick-and-Mortar Stores ,
e-Books ,
E-Commerce ,
Grocery Stores ,
Internet Retailers ,
Pop-Up Stores ,
Retail Market ,
Retailers ,
Shopping Centers ,
Whole Foods
The holidays are a hectic time for a lot of different reasons. One thing that remains constant through the chaos of work events, family gatherings, and inclement weather is the hustle and bustle of the retail world. This post...more
While increased occurrences of retail store closures and predictions about the death of the shopping mall are causing mall owners to consider downsizing or repurposing their space away from consumer-facing retail and toward...more
Is “Christmas in July” a bonus for consumers or retailers? Which retailers are coming to the front of the price slashing competition and what products are hot off the shelves? According to retail experts, Amazon raked in...more
When we last looked at tip pooling at restaurants and who would be permitted to be included, the laws and regulations were in flux. Since then, the Tip Income Protection Act of 2018 was signed into law. ...more
3/27/2019
/ Employer Liability Issues ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Food Service Workers ,
Minimum Wage ,
Restaurant Industry ,
Tip Credit ,
Tip-Pooling ,
Tipped Employees ,
Tips ,
Wage and Hour
Amazon’s highly anticipated announcement in mid-November that New York City and Northern Virginia will be the locations for its “split” second headquarters ended a lengthy contest among major American cities vying to be...more
This week’s news of former retail giants Sears and Kmart filing for bankruptcy is bound to spur headlines about the death of retail in the U.S. However, multiple forecasts predict that robust 2018 holiday shopping will...more
The anxiety of the death of retail has given way to the retail renaissance. Experiential retail draws the shopper in for entertainment, pop-up stores capture the shoppers’ curiosity as they stroll past a storefront or see...more
Retail follows rooftops. Few real estate adages are more axiomatic. Increasingly, however, the reverse is becoming true, and rooftops, or residential uses, are cozying up to retail....more
A Changed View of Online Sales Tax for Out-of-State Retailers -
With the growing and evolving retail world, which we have discussed before, one thing had remained constant: retailers did not have to collect sales tax for...more
6/22/2018
/ Appeals ,
Commerce Clause ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
Internet Retailers ,
Interstate Commerce ,
Out-of-State Companies ,
Physical Presence Test ,
Quill ,
Reversal ,
Sales & Use Tax ,
SCOTUS ,
South Dakota v. Wayfair ,
Substantial Nexus
A federal district court in Manhattan recently handed down a telling decision addressing an issue at the fore of digital advertising — whether trademark law prohibits an organization from purchasing a competitor’s trademark...more
5/2/2018
/ Alzheimer's ,
Charitable Organizations ,
E-Commerce ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Internet Marketing ,
Lanham Act ,
Multi-Factor Test ,
Online Advertisements ,
Retailers ,
Trademark Infringement ,
Trademark Litigation ,
Trademark Ownership ,
Trademarks
Tenant curation, experiential retail, and social media-based marketing are thriving trends in today’s brick-and-mortar shopping center industry. Retail is not the only real estate asset class susceptible to trends, and a...more
This past April, we reported on a recent Ninth Circuit ruling which upheld a 2011 Department of Labor (“DOL”) rule that prohibits restaurants from instituting tip-pooling arrangements that include both front-of-house staff...more
12/7/2017
/ Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Minimum Wage ,
Obama Administration ,
OMB ,
Private Right of Action ,
Repeal ,
Restaurant Industry ,
Reversal ,
SCOTUS ,
Split of Authority ,
Tip-Pooling ,
Tipped Employees ,
Trump Administration ,
Wage and Hour
The retail universe is well aware of the hype that it is only a matter of time until brick and mortal retail succumbs to its online competitors. However, despite the “doom and gloom” we generally see in headlines, retail has...more
A recurring theme of this blog is that e-commerce, mobile devices, and evolving technology are changing the retail landscape. It seems that technology shifts are also poised to change the retail streetscape. More...more
Headlines about brick and mortar retail tend to be dominated by how these establishments are in decline while online retail is burgeoning. Fortunately for brick and mortar retailers, their demise is not preordained since...more
As fashion retailers across the country jostle for market share in an ever-changing and ever-competitive marketplace, some retailers are trying to improve their bottom lines not by adjusting or expanding their offerings in...more
Restaurant owners with tipped employees should take note of several recent court cases which may affect their ability to cause restaurant employees to participate in “tip pooling,” particularly in instances where...more
The proliferation of accessibility lawsuits under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has not abated. It is well-documented that ADA-related litigation increased by 37% from 2015 to 2016, which is...more
2/22/2017
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Disability Discrimination ,
E-Commerce ,
Internet Retailers ,
Public Accommodation ,
Retail Market ,
Retailers ,
Technology ,
Title III ,
Website Accessibility ,
Website Owner Liability ,
Websites
Mobile payment options are no longer the wave of the future. They are already here. It was projected that there would be almost 450 million mobile payment users worldwide by the end of 2016. These users generated $60 billion...more
How much trust do you place in celebrities who endorse products on social media platforms such as Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube? Do you stop to consider whether they are compensated for their efforts...more
10/20/2016
/ Advertising ,
Celebrity Endorsements ,
Disclosure Requirements ,
Endorsements ,
Facebook ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
FTC Endorsement Guidelines ,
Hashtags ,
Instagram ,
Internet Marketing ,
Marketing ,
Popular ,
Retail Market ,
Snapchat ,
Social Media ,
Twitter ,
YouTube
We’ve previously addressed the hype that it is only a matter of time until brick and mortar retail succumbs to its online competitors. While we concluded that brick and mortal retail is not in danger of immediate extinction,...more
10/6/2016
/ Copyright ,
E-Commerce ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Internet Retailers ,
Popular ,
Retail Market ,
Retailers ,
Technology ,
Technology Sector ,
Trademarks ,
Virtual Reality
We previously wrote about how on-demand delivery services, such as Uber and its competitors Lyft and Postmates, have the potential to provide brick and mortar retailers with an answer to Amazon’s delivery service. Services...more
On-demand delivery services, such as Uber and its competitors Lyft and Postmates, are increasingly taking steps that have the potential to offer a counterpunch to online retailers such as Amazon and may shake up the brick and...more
6/23/2016
/ Amazon Marketplace ,
Delivery Drivers ,
Internet Retailers ,
Lyft ,
On-Demand Services ,
Popular ,
Restaurant Industry ,
Retail Market ,
Retailers ,
Sharing Economy ,
Uber