Paul Bradley Carr and Sarah Lacy, a married pair who opened the Best Bookstore in Palm Springs in 2022, will open a second store in their other home city, San Francisco. To be dubbed the Best Bookstore in Union Square, the new shop will be part of an urban revitalization project, Vacant to Vibrant, launched by the nonprofit SF New Deal (SFND) and the San Francisco Office of Economic and Workforce Development (OEWD). V2V is a component of Mayor Daniel Lurie’s Heart of the City initiative, which so far has attracted more than $50 million in private sector investments. To encourage independent startups, SFND and OEWD award grants, offer technical support with permitting and red tape, and provide generous leasing arrangements worked out with property owners and managers. “To continue accelerating downtown’s comeback, we are prioritizing safe and clean streets, supporting small businesses, drawing new universities to San Francisco, and activating our public spaces with new parks and entertainment zones,” Mayor Lurie said

Understanding how to stand out in the mailbox is more important than ever in 2020 and beyond, especially so because of today’s competition for consumer attention. In fact, a 2015 study said the average American is exposed to anywhere between 4,000 and 10,000 ads per day. That’s madness! With the large majority of these being digital ads, this provides a huge opportunity for direct mail and print marketing campaigns. Though the average person’s mailbox is much less crowded now than it has been in decades, this competition for consumer attention is more fierce than it has ever been. That’s why when it comes to your direct mail marketing campaign, you need to be very calculated in your approach; understanding cost, attribution, average ROI and the overall health of your house file are vital considerations that must occur with the launch of any successful direct mail program. Click Read More below for details

Every month, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Census Bureau releases its first calculation of the previous month’s retail sales. Retail Dive reports on the results for core retail segments, (minus food, auto and fuel), using year-over-year comparisons. With a boost from the back-to-school season and higher prices as tariffs fuel inflation, August retail sales in the segments covered by Retail Dive rose 5.5% year over year, according to numbers released Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Commerce. E-commerce soared over 8%. “Consumer goods prices rose 0.5% in August, and 0.3% when excluding food and energy, suggesting a big part of the gain in sales actually stems from consumers paying higher prices rather than buying more goods last month,” Wells Fargo economists Tim Quinlan and Shannon Grein said in a research note following the government’s report. Broadly, underlying volumes rose by a scant 0.4%, “a marked deterioration from the 1.4% volume increase produced last month,” according to GlobalData research. The e-commerce surge was likely fueled by sales events last month, according to GlobalData Managing Director Neil Saunders. It’s notable because retail sales have been volatile month to month overall, but e-commerce has been up for 11 of the past 12 months, according to Wells Fargo.