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December Retail Monitor data saw a sharp surge in growth as consumers continued prioritizing holiday spending on family and friends.

Marketing is one of the most emotionally charged line items in an independent retailer’s budget. In this article, we discuss why return on investment, or ROI, can greatly help you determine which marketing tactics are working and which aren't.

In an era where screens dominate nearly every waking hour, it’s tempting to assume that print media has quietly shuffled off into the archive room, somewhere between the fax machine and the Rolodex. But it hasn’t disappeared, it has simply evolved, narrowed its focus, and in many ways become more powerful precisely because it is no longer everywhere.

Local events are hiding in plain sight, waving little flags that read free attention. Street fairs, charity runs, school fundraisers, farmers markets, chamber mixers, holiday parades, sidewalk sales, pop-up art walks, even the Rotary pancake breakfast. These aren’t just community moments. They’re marketing accelerants. And they’re vastly underused.

This tension between stability and agility is one of the defining struggles of business modernization. Companies want to innovate quickly, but they can’t afford to disrupt the core systems that manage their inventory, supply chains and transactions. So how can these businesses move forward? The solution can be found in low-code development.

Partnering with neighboring businesses is one of those ideas that sounds obvious, gets talked about often and then quietly ignored. But when done intentionally, local partnerships create shared traffic, stronger customer relationships and measurable growth for everyone involved.

As holiday shopping ramps up and consumers flock to stores to gather last-minute gifts for their loved ones, new Ingenico data shows how shoppers are adjusting their spending and payment habits amid rising costs. Based on the findings, one thing is clear: consumers are not cutting back on holiday spending.

Retail sales saw strong year-over-year growth in November, with the first half of the holiday shopping season putting results on track to meet the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) spending forecast, according to the CNBC/NRF Retail Monitor.

A new peer-reviewed study, titled "The Role of Information, Rewards, and Convenience in Take-Back Programs for Clothing," found that simply telling consumers their returned items will be “kept out of landfills” significantly increases participation in take-back programs. But when retailers disclose that they may resell those items for profit, participation plummets.

Independent retailers walk a tightrope these days—one foot on Main Street, the other on the digital superhighway. Local identity is your superpower; social media is simply the megaphone. Use both wisely and you get resonance, not noise.