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Saturday Feature
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RetailSummer 2020’s New Winning Accessory
The history of American fashion trends is bedecked with some strange entries. The summer of love in 1969 saw hippies storm Bethel,...
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CoronavirusWhy ‘Dining Out’ Is About To Become A Much More Literal Term
Memorial Day weekend is upon us – which means here in the United States, summer is officially setting up to begin. Sort...
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RetailPool Noodles, Mannequins And The Wilder Side Of Social Distancing For Restaurants
If we’re being truly honest with ourselves, the new rules that will surround restaurants’ dining rooms in the near future don’t sound...
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Travel PaymentsThe Resurgence Of The Great American Road Trip
Before 1980, the typical American vacation, no matter its destination, always began with a road trip. Sandwiches and cold drinks packed in a...
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CoronavirusMeet 2020’s Newest Influencers
Influencers have had a rough couple of weeks, as consumers’ tastes have rapidly drifted away from the high-gloss, incredibly curated and aspirational...
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Artificial Intelligence‘Paging Dr. Spot’ – How Robots Are Helping Doctors Make The Rounds
Robotics adoption has had something of a rocky road in the U.S. market in the last several years. While the CES show in...
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CoronavirusLove In The Time Of COVID-19
In a normal year, spring is generally known as the season for new love. There’s something about the chirping birds, the shining sun...
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CoronavirusThe Handshake Is Dead – Long Live The Curtsy
The handshake has a long and curious history as far as greetings go. Most historians place the first instance back in the...
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CoronavirusThe Mr. Rogers Remedy For Keeping Calm Through COVID-19
“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for...
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CoronavirusThe World Unfiltered: What We’ve Learned About Each Other In The Last Two Weeks (Whether We Wanted To Or Not)
In 2004, Dove launched what it called “The Campaign for Real Beauty,” a marketing strategy developed to focus on “the natural physical...
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RetailCoronavirus Boosts Mom, Apple Pie And A Return To ‘Leave It To Beaver’ America
If one is looking for doom, gloom, destruction or gallows humor, there is a vast menu of sources. The stock market, the...
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CoronavirusKombucha, Bingeing, Legos And Wine: How We’ll Keep Busy In Quarantine
In 1987, Disney launched one of the more successful ad campaigns in its history. It ran right after the Super Bowl game between...
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RetailCould This Be The Last Time We Change The Clocks?
While most people have complained numerous times about there not being enough hours in the day, there is one day a year...
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RetailThe Incredibly Unexpected World Of Leap Year Commerce
The leap year is upon us – the quadrennial event when the Gregorian calendar corrects a slight problem with its construction that,...
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RetailThe Supreme Oreo And Other Astonishing Food Commerce
For those seeking streetwear-themed food, there is a cornucopia of options. Ground zero seems to have been Taco Bell and Forever 21’s 2017 team-up...
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RetailIs New York Fashion Week Still In Style?
In many ways, 2020’s version of New York Fashion Week was much like any other year. Designers, models, fashionistas and social media...
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RetailValentine’s Day, Pizza Rings And All The Ways (To Pay) To Say ‘I Love You’
In less than a week, “national engagement season” will be over. And for those saying something to the effect of “there is no...
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RetailSuper Bowl Commerce Preview: Avocados, Spiteful Beer And A $6M Thank-You
The Super Bowl is nearly upon us – the Kansas City Chiefs are headed to their first “big game” in 50 years...
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RetailMaking Money When It Rains Iguanas
Dale Carnegie, America’s first self-help guru and author of “How To Win Friends & Influence People,” famously coined the phrase “when life...
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Security & FraudThe Rise Of Organized — And Disorganized — Crime In Physical Retail
They say the perfect crime is hard to commit, but last week in Spokane, Washington an intrepid burglar managed to pull it...
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InternationalGiving Financial Independence The Royal Treatment
For Americans, who didn’t grow up with a constitutional monarchy in place, the various ins-and-outs of the British royal family are a...
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RetailThe Weird Commerce Of The Dark Web
In the day-to-day life of the regular law-abiding internet user, the dark web is mostly a scary unknown. Insofar as the average...
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RetailGoing Truly Over The Top For Christmas
Christmas is now in the 2019 rear-view mirror. Gifts have been unwrapped, and 10 percent of packages are, or are in the...
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NewsHow Mariah Carey’s Christmas Classic Digitally Rocketed To No. 1 In 2019
This Christmas season, what’s old is not only new again — in fact, what’s old is kicking major butt on the music...
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RetailMay The Star Wars Merch Be With You
As you may have heard, there is a new Star Wars movie coming out in a little under a week. If you haven’t...
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RetailCan The Santa Experience Save Brick-And-Mortar Retail This Holiday Season?
Some holiday traditions are easy to explain — things like wrapping presents, drinking hot chocolate and baking cookies are all neatly summed up...
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InnovationCan Digital Upgrades Save Monopoly (And Other Board Game Classics)?
The holiday season isn’t only about retail and payments. It’s about family and friends – and killing time with those relatives and...
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RetailShattered Glass: The Tesla Cybertruck And Other Product Launch Stunts/#FAILS
It wasn’t supposed to happen that way. That’s the thought that came to mind this week in the PYMNTS Bureau of Failed...
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RetailWhy, In The eCommerce Era, Catalogs Are Cool Again
While Sears Roebuck gets all the credit for inventing the mail order catalog business in the United States, in historical terms they...
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Payment MethodsHave Pillow, Will Trade? How Digital Is Stirring A New Age Of Bartering
What’s old, of course, always becomes new again. That holds especially true this month for the prehistoric practice of bartering. Indeed, it...
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InnovationWhy Smart Cities Of The Future Won’t Be Built In A Day
While smart cities have been in the public consciousness for a long time, we’ve been writing about them here at PYMNTS since...
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CommerceThe Modern-Day Cost Of The Excalibur Sword — And Other Holy Grail Treasures
How much would you pay for the Sword of Excalibur? That, of course, is the legendary sword used by the legendary King...
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Social CommerceThe Lucrative Advertising Life Of Instafamous Kids
On June 3, 2019, a star was born. Her name is Alessi Ren Luyendyk. If you are wondering why a random four-month-old...
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InnovationWearables That Read Your Mind
The fact that our connected devices are getting to know us pretty well is, by now, well-known. A phone that can unlock a hotel room...
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RetailWhy Libraries Are Giving Up On Late Fees
It has happened to all but the most organized among us. We’re minding our own business, cleaning out a closet or reorganizing the...
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RetailThe Big Bucks Behind Sleep (Or Lack Thereof)
The benefits of a good night’s sleep can’t be overstated – nor the negative consequences of not getting one. The average human...
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RetailWhy Treehouses Rule The Airbnb Roost
Pop quiz: When you read the words “most popular Airbnb listing in history,” what is the first thought that pops into your mind?...
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InnovationInside The Race For Flying-Taxi Liftoff
This might still sound like science fiction to many people, but the race for flying-taxi dominance is on and is gaining fresh...
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RetailThe Sharpie’s Indelible Mark On Commerce (And, Well, #SharpieGate)
September is always a big month for the Sharpie. With back-to-school in full swing, Sharpies are popular favorites on supply lists nationwide. That means...
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CommerceBurning Man: Silicon Valley’s Hottest Perk?
As Labor Day 2019 rolls in, the residents of the Eastern shore of Florida are gearing up for what is increasingly looking...
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Digital PaymentsFootball Season To Kick Off New Payments Plays
It’s that’s time of year again – football season is upon us. As diehard baseball geeks pout about having to share TV time...
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RetailWhat To Expect From Back-To-School Shopping
There is no set national date for the beginning of school in the United States because there is no set date to go back...
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Digital PaymentsMoney-Inspired Music And Why Hip Hop Tops The Charts
It used to be all about the Benjamins, all about the cold hard cash – in this case, U.S. $100 bills, as...
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RetailTo Dream The Impossible Meatless Dream?
In the year 2000, if one had stood on a street corner and predicted that in two decades, the biggest craze to...
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RetailThat Inexplicable In-N-Out Burger, And Marketing Stunt #Fails
This week, the world was presented with a truly unusual retail mystery: The Case of the Inexplicable In-N-Out Burger. The story starts...
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InnovationCan Elon Musk Turn The Human Brain Into A Connected Device?
It can never be said that Elon Musk has a problem thinking big. That can be seen from his early days as one...
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InnovationMonopoly Goes Cashless And Board Games Gain Popularity
In this age of live multi-player online gaming, and virtual reality, and all things digital, it can be easy to think of...
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RetailStranger Summer Payments Things
While there are many things to love about summer – vacations, the beach, BBQs, fireworks, amusement parks and so on – in...
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InnovationeCommerce … The 1950s Way
Despite the fact that eCommerce has become a way of life in the last two decades, it is harder than it might...
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InnovationInnovative Approaches To The $4.2T Health And Wellness Market
It seems every firm is trying to find a way into the expansive — and ever-growing — “health and wellness” market. As...
