Jay Jacobowitz
Jay Jacobowitz is president and founder of Retail Insights®, a professional consulting service for natural products retailers established in 1998, and creator of Natural Insights for Well Being®, a comprehensive consumer marketing service designed especially for independent natural products retailers. With over 40 years of wholesale and retail industry experience, Jay has assisted in developing over 1,000 successful natural products retail stores in the U.S. and abroad. Jay is a popular author, educator, and speaker, and is the merchandising editor of WholeFoods Magazine, for which he writes Merchandising Insights and Tip of the Month. Jay also serves the Natural Products Association in several capacities. Jay can be reached at (800)328-0855 or via e-mail at jay@retailinsights.com.
Whither Independents?
Why do some independents succeed while others struggle? There’s no single success formula, but clues emerge as we scan the retail landscape.
An Outmoded Business...
Be First to Know How Independent Retailers Did This Year
The editors at WholeFoods are putting the finishing touches on our Annual Retailer Survey, which will go out to our independent retailer readers in...
Mask II–The Sequel: Whiplash!
On May 16, 2021, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control updated its COVID-19 guidance for wearing masks:
“If you’ve been fully vaccinated: You can resume...
Post-COVID Store Operations: Changes to Prepared, Bulk Foods, and Customer Policies
Any regular reader of this magazine knows our annual retailer survey, published each March, consistently reveals that the more fresh, perishables foods a store...
Retail Insights® 2021 Retail Universe for Premium Natural Organic Food, Supplement...
The lesson from the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic is this: natural products are essential. As the pandemic broke out in early 2020, freaked-out consumers—both existing...
2020 Year in Review Part 2: Retailers Weigh In
Part 1 of this story, 2020 Year In Review Plus What's New and What's Next for 2021, is available here.
This coming March, WholeFoods Magazine...
What’s a Website For?
Independent natural products retailers seem to intuitively know the daily work they do to help others get and stay well is more important than...
Coronavirus Diary Part II
In June, we published Part I of this series of retailer interviews about the response to the pandemic. Here, we follow up as of...
The Dangers of Success
It may seem counterintuitive, but not once you think about it. Over the last several months I’ve been relieved to be in the natural...
The Coronavirus Open Mind
How hard is it to get your marketing message out—and into someone’s head? Very hard, and very expensive, as you know. Because normally, minds...
