When the ranking and valuation list of the world's most valuable retail brands was released this month, there was one retail brand that was conspicuously absent - Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF). No matter how much CEO Mike Jeffries has exalted the Abercrombie & Fitch brand in his own mind, according to brand consulting firm Millward Brown, the monetary value of the Abercrombie & Fitch brand is not enough to earn it a place on the annual Top 100 list. In fact, the Abercrombie & Fitch brand is less valuable than KFC (YUM), Target (TGT), IKEA, H&M, Starbucks (SBUX), Home Depot (HD), and McDonald's (MCD) - seven companies that I'm pretty sure make Mike Jeffries' spray-tanned skin crawl.

If we look at a comparison of the World's Most Valuable Brands from the past six years, we don't see the presence of the Abercrombie & Fitch anywhere. And yet the mission of Abercrombie & Fitch, the rhetoric about Abercrombie & Fitch, and the leadership decisions of Abercrombie & Fitch are all about the brand. I asked the question in 2009 and I'll ask it again today... Where exactly should we look to find evidence of the enormous value of the Abercrombie & Fitch brand?

Certainly after last year's flip-flop-boys-on-a-plane revelation and this month's global controversy caused by Jeffries' supercilious remarks about non-skinny people, we won't find the value of the Abercrombie brand rooted too deeply in public opinion about its Chief Executive Narcissist.

We may not find the value of the Abercrombie brand inside its organization either, since Jeffries has only a 38% approval rating from former and current employees, according to Glassdoor.com. The Abercrombie & Fitch website has maintained consistently low Internet retail customer satisfaction ratings, so that's not where the value of the brand is hiding either.

We won't find the value of the brand in the size of the chain, since Jeffries has led it to the top of the 2013 U.S. Store Closings list. We're also probably not going to find it on the balance sheet either, after Abercrombie reported a 9% decrease in revenue and a 17% drop in same store sales for the first quarter of this year.

If we look hard we can find some short-term value in ANF stock, which is 6% higher than it was at the beginning of the year. But if we look harder, we won't find it in the long-term value of ANF stock, which is selling today at 2006 prices.

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As bad as all of this may look, a recent conversation at a coffee shop caused me to believe that negative publicity, low employee approval, sales, and stock prices are the least of Mike Jeffries' and Abercrombie & Fitch's worries right now.

I was sitting in a coffee shop with a group of millennials from Germany, the Netherlands, Australia, and the U.S. One of the girls from Germany was wearing a Hollister t-shirt... >> continue reading >>

Do you think Mike Jeffries should be replaced when his contract expires in 2014? Cast your vote in the poll above and then click the link beneath it to see the current results.

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Nearly two million college graduates were dumped into the job market in the past four weeks, which is scary news both for the new graduates and also for those already in the U.S. workforce with or without degrees. There are two questions about retail employment that are pertinent to these 2013 college grads. First, do retail employers have suitable employment for newly-degreed job hunters? Second, where are the best places to find the best retail jobs available to new college grads?

In a study released this month by management consultants McKinsey & Co., half of the respondents who had graduated college between 2009 and 2012 didn't think about the jobs they would or wouldn't be able to get when they chose their degree or their college. So, it's not surprising that 53% of those recent college grads also said they would choose a different major or a different college if they had it to do all over again.

These are the kind of thoughts that will be probably be running through nearly two million minds in a U.S. job market that is both tight and skills mismatched. A college degree is not a job guarantee. That fact might still come as a surprise to 2013 Millennial graduates who generally aren't lacking in confidence or feelings of entitlement.

A study released in January by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity (CCAP) estimated that there will be 19 million college graduates between 2010 and 2020, who will be competing for less than 7 million new jobs requiring a college degree. Confident or not, entitled or not, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 7.7% of people with college degrees were completely unemployed in 2012.

Given this somewhat depressing employment data, college grads should be happy to know that the U.S. retail industry, which employs 15 million people and accounts for about two-thirds of the U.S. GDP, has been thriving relatively well in 2013 and has been adding jobs and hiring new employees every month. But this still isn't a booming U.S. economy, so there are still more resumes than positions in every major U.S. retail company. The 2013 college grads are going to have to work to find their retail work.

A college grad seeking a retail job can't walk door-to-door through the mall and expect to find one any more. And frankly, why would they want to? There are professional, managerial jobs requiring college degrees in all of the largest U.S. retail chains too, if you know where to find them. So, where should degreed retail job-seekers start looking?

The best cities for college grads are the ones that have... >> continue reading >>

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Americans and European grocery store shoppers want more personalization and mobile interaction, according to a recent survey by Symphony EYC, an online and in-store data collection company based in California. This is great justification for the 83% of retailers leaders surveyed at the annual RetailNext Executive Forum this month who said they have increased the amount of data that is being collected and analyzed in their retail stores in the past two years. While the number of ways to gather data about consumers grows, the controversy about retail personalization vs. retail invasion of privacy grows as well.

Shoppers want a personalized shopping experience. Retailers are eager to give shoppers anything that will result in more sales. So what could be controversial about that?

"Personalization" requires "tracking," and tracking requires "data collection," and data collection results in data "sharing." And at what point does the "personalization" process cross the line into "intrusion?" Is there such a thing as a right to shopping privacy? And if retailers' ethics allow them to invade someone's personal shopping space, should those retailers be legally required to stop?

As with every advancement in retail technology, the boundaries of the boundless are defined by the collective consciousness of those who speak the loudest about it. Unfortunately people don't usually speak up and boundaries are not usually defined until after some egregious violation has occurred.

The e-commerce technology company RichRelevance recently acquired the Swedish online merchandising platform Avail. What this means is that the company that acquires and tracks data about shoppers on Walmart.com (WMT), Sears.com (SHLD), and Target.com (TGT) is now also acquiring and tracking data from some of the largest European shopping websites like Argos in the UK, Migros in Switzerland, Coop in Denmark, and GAME, the GameStop equivalent in Europe.

Should consumers be concerned that one privately-owned company has access to that much information about that many people around the world? Especially when the people in their data base didn't even know they were under surveillance?

Every technological advancement in data collection comes with an unlimited potential for loss of privacy and personal freedom. Plenty of consumers are concerned now. Plenty more will be concerned the first time that RichRelevance data is leaked, sold, pilfered, hacked, or used for some nefarious purpose.

This month the founders of Euclid Elements told an audience at the PII privacy conference in Seattle that tracking the movements of shoppers via their mobile devices without their knowledge or permission is not an invasion of privacy. This is largely based on a 2012 U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that Americans have no constitutional right to privacy regarding their location if that location is tracked via their mobile device. This lack of privacy ruling is also viewed as the precedent for recognition software currently being used to associate an unlimited amount information about unwitting consumers with their faces.

Both mobile tracking and facial recognition technologies are being used by large U.S. retail chains in the name of "personalization." The leaders of both physical retail stores and Internet shopping websites say the more they know about customers the better they can serve customers. But in practical execution, what that really means is the more they find out about you, the easier it will be for them to get money from you. In my mind, those two things are not the same.

The real world retail equivalent of today's website shopping "personalization" is the annoying used car salesperson who follows you around like a puppy dog and repeatedly wants you to "Look at this!" based on the slightest interest that you show in any feature of any car. You say, "Nice sunroof!" and the salesperson latches onto that positive sales cue like a poodle with abandonment issues, dragging you around to look at 113 other used cars on the lot with sunroofs, whether this is a dealmaker feature for you or not.

But the reason why the "personalization" of websites is less annoying than the average used car salesperson is because most shoppers don't realize that the same tactics are being used by the cybersales bots that are forcing them to "Look at this!" by manipulating what is and isn't seen as cyber shoppers click around a website.

For instance, if you buy a black 100% cotton v-neck t-shirt online or even just click on one to see if it comes in your size on a website with sophisticated "personalization" technology, you will then see a lot of black, 100% cotton, and v-neck apparel on your computer screen the next time you visit that website whether you want to or not. And because the website is programmed to show you "more of the same," you might be missing a bright red printed silk something that you'd really love because it's buried down on page 23 in the search results.

Most of today's retail personalization technology works on the theory that all shoppers are creatures of habit and will always go for "more of the same." Some of the more sophisticated technology is based on the assumption that there are a high percentage of Sheeple Shoppers who are easily swayed by the also-bought-bot... "Shoppers who purchased this book about quadratic equations also bought this garlic press with the purple rubber handle." These website recommendations might see be helpful hints, but if all Internet shoppers realized what was going on behind the scenes to make those "personalized" recommendations possible, they might find them to be manipulative, intrusive, and rather insulting.

But that is a huge "if." If Internet shoppers realized what was going on. If Internet shoppers cared to realized what was going on.

I would like a website pop-up to ask me every time I sign up... "Would you like us to watch your every move so that our algorithms can do your thinking for you whenever you click to our website?" With that kind of forthright question, I might even answer "yes." Retailers would say that they already ask consumers that question every time a consumer is given the opportunity to accept the 10,000-word Terms of Service agreement. Not really.

With Terms of Service agreements, it's all or nothing. If you use our website these are our rules, which include being watched and tracked. And if you don't want to participate in our cyber surveillance, then you can't shop on our website. This is a common stance and as long as this kind of corporate bullying is left unquestioned by Internet shoppers it will continue to exist.

Undoubtedly there is someone who is typing a comment right now that says if I don't like my every click tracked on Internet shopping websites, then I can always just go back into the brick and mortar stores where I'm free to look at whatever I want with anonymity. Agreed.

That is, unless I shop in the brick-and-mortar stores of Nordstrom or 35 of the other largest U.S. retail chains that are now tracking consumers as they move around the mall by tapping into their mobile phone MAC address. These days you don't have to be using a retail mobile app or even connected to a store's WiFi network in order for a store to search, find, and track you via your mobile phone. Just because this is legal, doesn't mean that it's okay.

But is there really all that much be concerned about with being tracked through your mobile device? What kind of data can possibly be tracked from a mobile phone that's shoved in your pocket or purse? Well... By tapping into your mobile device, retailers can not only track how many times you have walked into the store over the past year, they can also find out how many times you have walked past the store without walking inside. Yes, retailers are tracking your movements even if you never set foot in one of their stores. Which would be similar to Walmart.com tracking your every click on the Internet even if you never visit its website.

How long did you spend inside the store each time you visited? Where did you walk inside the store? What merchandise displays did you pause in front of? How long did you spend in the dressing room? Did you walk past our store and walk into a competitor's store? How much time did you spend there? All of this information might have been gathered and shared about you the last time you visited a mall. Did you know? Are you happy about it?

And this is not just information that is being tracked in an anonymous aggregate. This is individual information about individual people gathered from their individual mobile device. And every time an individual consumer walks by or walks in, new data about them is gathered, stored, and amassed. That is, unless the individuals leave their mobile device at home, remember to turn their WiFi off, or get a new mobile phone altogether.

At least on a website the complicated and microscopic Terms of Service do inform users about how they are being tracked and what is being done with the information collected. I don't recall being informed about tracking and data gathering practices when I walked in the entrance of my neighborhood mall. And I don't recall being informed about how I could opt out. If data tracking is being allowed to happen in a mall, then shouldn't a mall be required to disclose that to its shoppers just like a website?

If it creeps you out to know that your every movement is being tracked in malls and retail stores around the world, the good news is that you can click here to opt out directly with Euclid Elements, the company that provides the tracking technology to many of the major retailers. It's not the only techno tracking that's being used, but it's one of the most widespread.

All this technology is being developed and used in the name of "personalization" and what the retail companies are calling an improved in-store experience. But in the case of brick-and-mortar stores, isn't that what living, breathing retail sales employees are for? Aren't retail salespeople the ones who are supposed to be personalizing in-store shopping experiences by building relationships, paying attention to detail, and delivering a personal touch? And isn't that what retailers like Nordstrom are famous for?

By the way, after eight months of tracking their customers through their mobile devices, Nordstrom announced that it has stopped doing it. There's no official word about whether the mobile tracking was stopped out of respect for Nordstrom customers, but we can only hope that the retailer that topped the 2013 Customer Favorite Fashion Store list will continue to put people before profits.

Has it come to the point that retail success these days is dependent on technology-based manipulation?

There are ways to personalize things while allowing the shopper to be in control of the personalization. Instead of showing me black, 100% cotton, and v-neck items based on my last purchase, you could just ask me if I want to see other black things, other 100% cotton things, or other v-neck garments. Asking the question and allowing me to answer is personalization. Not asking me and showing me things whether I want to see them or not is lumping me into a mathematical formula of generalized conclusions based on the behavior of the aggregate. That's the opposite of personalization.

Retailers seem to want to create a consuming Borg with their "personalization" technology, but conscious consumers don't really want to be part of a collective. They want real, genuine, individual personalization. And just because retailers slap a "personalization" label onto the many ways they use their involuntary data collection doesn't make it so.

To me the problem with the increasing amount of data collection and sharing in the retail industry is in the how of it. If all this "personalization" is so good for the customer, then why is the execution of it happening without the customer's knowledge or permission? The reason, of course, is because if consumers were aware of all of this cybersurveillance they might object to it or choose not to participate. Yes. Exactly.

A customer-driven request for personalization based on voluntarily surrendered pieces of information is quite different from cyber spies that surreptitiously gather information to store, use and share at will. The first scenario is a cooperative relationship. The second scenario is a manipulative scheme. And the second scenario, it seems to me, would only be the chosen strategy of retail leaders that are desperate, lazy, controlling, or some combination of all three.

Opt-in programs are used for things that retailers believe that customers will view as obviously beneficial. Opt-out programs are used for things that are mostly for the benefit to the retailers. A majority of consumers still have not have caught onto that yet, and many of the largest U.S. retail chains seem to be betting their reputations on the belief that a critical mass of consumers never will catch onto that.

But in the age of unlimited accessibility, that's a big gamble. It takes very few viral social media minutes for consumer opinion to shift dramatically, as our friend Mike Jeffries can tell you. And by the time consumer opinion opts out of a retail relationship because of policies and behaviors that are judged to be unethical or unacceptable, there is no amount of data that's going to reveal how to win those opted-out customers back.

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In the months of April and May, the fleet of retail flagship stores has been expanding around the globe at an impressive rate. But despite continued global flagship marketing success, not all flagship news has been positive, with store closings and consumer protests also part of the most recent global flagship news.

Similar to the Canadian invasion by American retailers, Australia is becoming a bigger retail target for some of the largest U.S. retail chains. Recently a trio of U.S. based home decor and lifestyle stores opened adjacent to each other in the Bondi Junction area of Sydney Australia. This is the only place in the world where all Williams-Sonoma brands are adjacent to each other, with the Williams-Sonoma flagship store sharing walls, floors, doors and Aussie shoppers with the Pottery Barn/PBKids flagship and the west elm flagship store.

The initial buzz from Sydney shoppers was overwhelmingly positive for all of the stores, which earn their flagship label not only by being the "first," but also by being some of the "best" examples of Williams-Sonoma retailing in the world. Creating a highly engaging retail experience is obviously a high priority for these flagship stores. Sydney shoppers have been already been wowed by the first Williams-Sonoma cooking school, the Pottery Barn dinner planning services, and the west elm stylists that will give free in-home consultations.

What Aussie shoppers have particularly appreciated is the styling and merchandising of the three flagship stores, and it's no wonder why. My personal observation of Australian retail stores caused me to conclude that visual merchandising is not a high priority down under. In general Australian retail stores have low ceilings, bare walls, basic fluorescent lighting, and very little signage. They're just not pretty, nor are they particularly logical or well organized. Don't get me started on the annoying lack of pricing.

Even the American retailers doing business in Australia are lacking in merchandising and visual appeal. The Australian Target (TGT) and Kmart (SHLD) stores that I visited look as if they recycled some of their blueprints from the 1970s for their Australian stores. But their basic utilitarian design isn't all that noticeable because Aussies don't seem to know they could expect more.

This is good news for American retailers who are increasingly invading the Australian retail scene because the visual merchandising level that is the standard in the U.S. is at a "wow" level on the other side of the planet. That's sure to change with the new invasion of international retailers on Australian shores, however.

A recent report by Colliers International predicts that 2.3 million square feet of retail space will be occupied by international retailers in Australia within the next five years. Reportedly the retail brands that will be most aggressively entering the Australian market are Topshop/Topman, The Gap (GPS), Zara, and Uniqlo. Apple (AAPL), and lululemon athletica are both expected to have 30 retail store locations in Australia by 2018. Retailers from at least ten countries plan to invade Australian retail space in the next five years, but 38% of that retail invasion will come from the U.S., Colliers predicts.

Other international flagship stores that have opened recently include the Marshalls flagship store in Toronto, Canada, the Coach (COH) flagship store in Tokyo, Japan, the Marks & Spencer flagship store in Bangalore, India, and the Dior flagship store in Hanoi, Vietnam. This is just a sampling of more than three dozen major flagship locations that have opened around the world in the past couple of months, which proves that the flagship marketing strategy and the global flagship fleet are still sailing strong, despite continued uncertainties in the global economy.

On American shores, the U.S. retail chain that is most aggressively using the flagship marketing strategy is Walgreens (WAG). There are now new Walgreens flagship stores in Boston, San Francisco, and Washington DC that have opened up in the past couple of months. These Walgreens are being dubbed as "flagships" because of their size, but also because of their atypical Walgreens offerings which include a sushi bar, a coffee shop, a frozen yogurt bar, and a manicure salon.

The Walgreens flagships are definitely different than the 8,000 "regular" Walgreens stores on every street corner in America. But since there are so many of these "flagships" being constructed with all of the same "flagship features," collectively they are not so much a flagship fleet as they are just a new store design that's being rolled out in key cities across the U.S. This doesn't detract from the Walgreens intent to improve its retail experience, which is reportedly being well received by customers who are impressed with the improvements.

Not all news from the global flagship retail fleet has been positive recently. The Apple flagship store in Manhattan had a leaky cube which allowed water to pour into the store during a particularly intense New York rainstorm this month. In the case of an electronics store, the Apple team found that water is not the friend of flagships.

There's a rumor that the Time Square Toys 'R Us store may be closing in the next three years. The rumor started at the ICSC conference in Las Vegas when real estate brokers were actively marketing the flagship space where the Toys'R Us lease will expire in 2016. Reportedly the Toys 'R Us flagship rent is now $12 million, and it is estimated that would increase to $50 million with the signing of a new lease. Industry experts are convinced that the future of the Toys Times Square flagship is already sunk.

Recently Nokia closed its largest flagship store in the world which had been opened in 2007 in Shanghai, China. The Nokia Shanghai location was one of 18 global flagship stores that Nokia opened in the Asia Pacific region which featured a multimedia in-store experience staffed by Nokia Academy graduates.

At the time that the flagship stores were opening, Nokia declared that customer feedback and insights from its flagship fleet of stores would drive decisions about Nokia products and services. Apparently the captains of Nokia's flagships stopped listening to their passengers somewhere along the way because Nokia's year-over-year sales in China were down 79% in 2012.

Nike's flagship store in Beijing also appears to be sinking and will be replaced by an H&M store when Nike's lease expires in 2013. Reportedly the Nike (NKE) exit is not due to poor sales, but rather the landlord's preference for "young, fashionable brands" which have a higher profit margin. Nike has more than 100 other retail stores in Beijing and has announced no plans to close any of them any time soon, even though the company has seen sales decreases in China recently.

Randalls is also blaming the landlord for the closure of its flagship store on South Voss in Houston. Supposedly lease renewal negotiations didn't go very well. But Randalls also has another "premium" store just two miles away, which might have caused its real estate team to not be very cooperative in the renegotiation process.

Protests have also been happening recently outside of global flagship stores for various reasons. More than 100 demonstrators outside the Reebok flagship store in Manhattan last month were protesting against the company's association with rapper Rick Ross because of lyrics in one of his songs that seemingly describes a date rape. The flagship protest, along with an aggressive social media campaign succeeded in getting Reebok to sever ties with the rapper as a celebrity spokesperson.

Another demonstration was staged outside of the Primark flagship store in London following the factory collapse in Dhanka, Bangladesh. The Primark flagship protestors were calling for the company to provide compensation to the victims of that factory disaster. As a result of that protest, and other public pressure, Primark has created a long-term compensation plan for victims of the factory collapse, which includes short-term aid, as well as a long-term plan for loss of earnings and food assistance.

These flagship protests are not only significant in their ability to get the attention of retail leaders. They are also a demonstration that the iconic status of flagship stores is recognized by consumers around the world. Flagship stores are more than just retail shopping destinations, they are brand representatives that are considered to be synonymous with the brand itself.

While there's no guarantee that flagship stores will stay afloat forever, for the time that they're sailing they're definitely still successful at attracting attention. In a global retail market that grows more crowded every day, there's great marketing value in that.

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