Need to Know
08 : 11 : 19

New York – Its new location is on a mission to transform the way Sweetgreen serves casual, convenient food.

Sweetgreen 3.0, which is located in Midtown Manhattan, will act as an incubator for the salad chain’s new ideas. In the first change the store has diverged from its typical format – in which an assembly line of staff members make salads in front of customers – in favour of concierges, who take orders on a tablet and provide information about the farmers and ingredients behind each dish.

The new store offers up to 22 bowls at a time, rather than its previous average of 10, and a digital board allows people to pick up their salad easily. The store has also diversified with new areas such as a retail space for cookbooks and sauces, and a market area that gives customers the opportunity to sample seasonal ingredients.

Sweetgreen hopes to inject the casual dining market with a dose of Educated Eating, informing customers about the stories behind its dishes’ ingredients.

Scotland – The fragrances have been produced to complement the whisky-tasting experience.

Whisky glassware brand Norlan teamed up with master perfumer Mark Buxton to create the Norlan Vam Terrain fragrances. Each of the three perfumes is designed to translate different moods and areas of Scotland – Scent I is based around the Highlands’ raw beauty, Scent II is inspired by the wilderness of the Isle of Skye, and Scent III represents the smokiness of Islay.

To create the collection, Norlan designer Sruli Recht joined Buxton for a journey around Scotland, collecting samples and learning about the ‘philosophy of aromatic sense memory’. The collaboration gave the duo a chance to design an experience that transports individuals through scent, merging the highly sensorial worlds of whisky and fragrance.

As consumers continue to shun mass-market fragrances in favour of premium, niche scents, the perfume market is responding with more unexpected collaborations.

Mobile will be a primary driver for retail sales this holiday season, according to a report from OpenX, which finds that e-commerce will surpass bricks-and-mortar in terms of sales. The majority (69%) of Millennials in the US are expected to use their phones to shop – a higher percentage than both desktop computers or laptops. In contrast, Baby Boomers plan to split their shopping evenly between online and in-store.

The shift towards mobile is being driven by Millennials and their increasing spending power. With two-thirds of Millennials saying they are the primary shoppers in their household, OpenX’s research indicates that this generation’s holiday budgets are 15% greater than the average consumer.

As e-commerce continues to evolve into a mobile-first industry, social media and smartphones are becoming more instrumental in the path to purchase. For more, read our Shoppable Social market.