The shoe store experience, as the bipeds among you know, has a fairly consistent sequence: Enter the store, browse models on the shoe wall, pick a style that catches your eye, and ask the salesperson to bring you a size 9 1/2 in oxblood red to try on.

But Kizik, the self-described “hands-free” shoe brand, recently opened its first brick-and-mortar store, and—as befits a brand that’s a palindrome—it’s running the shoe-shopping sequence in the reverse order.

Footloose: The store, by The Lionesque Group, an MG2 Studio, is in the Fashion Place mall near Salt Lake City, about 30 miles from Kizik’s headquarters in Lindon, Utah. A corner location that’s aquarium-like with two frameless glass storefront windows, the store features a floor-to-ceiling digital screen that plays the oddly mesmerizing moment of feet slipping into the shoes.

Although most styles look like typical sneakers, they have a spring mechanism built into the heel, and the video shows models stepping into them like mules. The heel compresses as the foot slides in, then once the foot’s secure, the heel snaps back into the upright position. Its parent company, HandsFree Labs, holds more than 170 granted or pending patents on the technology.

While Kizik was introduced in five Nordstrom locations earlier this year, “it’s been almost exclusively an e-commerce brand,” Monte Deere, CEO of both the 6-year-old brand and HandsFree Labs, told Retail Brew. The opportunity for people to engage with the shoes IRL, Deere continued, is that “this is an experiential technology that we have—an experiential shoe—and when people can touch it and try it on, we think conversion will be better in person.”

Keep reading here.—AAN

Ads have a simple job: turn potential customers into your brand’s biggest fans over and over again. No pressure, right?

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Motion teamed up with performance marketing expert Dara Denney for a 4-part live series on how to make TikTok and Facebook ads that convert. Dara has managed over $100m in ad spend for her clients, and she’s ready to spill all her secrets for building super-profitable creative strategies.

The live sessions run from May 30 to July 11, and your registration gets you access to all 4 live events.

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At the Boston Beer Company, two brands are moving in opposite directions: Truly, a newer, once-trendy brand is notching consistent declines, while Twisted Tea, an over two-decade-old brand, continues to grow.

Truly, which debuted in 2016, saw year over year sales dip 22.4% as of May 6, per NielsenIQ data. Twisted Tea, founded in 2001, grew dollar sales 34% in the first quarter, Boston Beer reported. Speaking at Goldman Sachs Global Staples Forum last week, Boston Beer founder and chairman Jim Koch shed light on the company’s Beyond Beer portfolio.

Taste test: Twisted Tea has grown double digits annually since 2001, Koch noted, and will likely hit a $1 billion run rate by the end of the year. But he revealed it was “easy to lose patience” along the way, and the company had even previously considered selling the brand. But a hard-to-replicate flavor profile has helped it fend off competitors, he noted.

Flavors, however, have been part of Truly’s downfall. Koch said White Claw positioning itself as “LaCroix with alcohol flavors,” gave it an edge, while Truly has faltered through its efforts to “seltzer-ize” other alcoholic beverages.

• Half of the declines for Truly in Q1 were attributed to dip in margarita sales and discontinuation of Truly Tea, Boston Beer CEO Dave Burwick said on its Q1 earnings call.

“It turned out that [White Claw] bet in the right place, and we didn’t,” Koch said.

Keep reading here.—EC

Shein is preparing for a big comeback in India...right on the heels of a $2 billion fundraising round, no less. The Chinese fast-fashion retailer has signed a deal with Indian company Reliance Retail to bring Shein back to the country as soon as this month, the Wall Street Journal first reported.

The Shein app was banned in India in 2020 alongside ~170 other Chinese apps, including TikTok, as the border conflicts between China and India worsened.

In the interim, the retailer has been finding loopholes to engage with Indian consumers, like intermittently selling its products on Amazon and Indian e-commerce company Myntra.

But the Shein partnership—approved by the Indian government and backed by the richest man in the country, Mukesh Ambani—indicates that the government doesn’t view the company as a Chinese entity anymore, after it moved its headquarters to Singapore.

Keep reading here.—JS

Today’s top retail reads.

Covered up: Once again, Band-Aid is the most trusted brand in the United States, according to a new Morning Consult Survey, and it’s the first year Amazon has cracked the top 10, landing at No. 3. (Insider)

Here ya go: You may have noticed that a lot more businesses are offering the option to tip for transactions, saying it helps them compete in the job market and boost revenues. And consumers seem to be playing along…for now. (the Wall Street Journal)

Give and take: New survey data shows that three-quarters of Americans would prefer working 10-hour days for four days a week to the traditional eight-hour, five-day workweek. Employers have yet to warm to the idea. (the Washington Post)

The numbers you need to know.

It’s always cool to make or buy a customizable shirt that’s hard to find anywhere else. Shoppers today want personalization, and brands are willing to fulfill that demand. But that may be riskier than previously thought. It turns out customers are often coming across or creating products that violate copyright law.

New data from WebPurify, a content moderation service, has found that 42% of user-generated content submitted to the company’s clients has some sort of copyright infringement. On average, WebPurify’s clients receive 21,000+ submissions with copyright infringement per day.

• One in 24 of these custom designs were found to be NSFW.
• Both of these pose risks for brands looking to offer customizable products, which consumers do want.
• More than half (53%) of young shoppers are interested in customizable clothing.

“Even one incident is enough to lose a customer’s trust, yet most brands fail to implement sufficiently robust moderation safeguards until after their reputations have been tarnished. With users demanding more personalization from brands, companies must engage both human and AI moderators to ensure protection of online customers,” Alexandra Popken, VP of trust and safety at WebPurify, said in a statement.

Catch up on the Retail Brew stories you may have missed.

• How luxury customer experience expectations vary globally
• Olaplex CEO talks reset, Edgewell and Harry’s discuss disruption
• The fast-changing nature of logistics