Artificial Intelligence

Big data, the cloud and cognitive systems that learn are transforming the future of retail and IBM chairman, president and CEO Ginni Rometty explained during a stimulating and insightful presentation at the National Retail Federation’s annual convention.

“We’ve clearly entered a world that is mobile first,” Rometty said. “It is easy to say, but hard to do.”

Pittsburgh – American Eagle Outfitters will launch the ShopKick shopBeacon iBeacon solution in 100 top-performing American Eagle Outfitters and Aerie stores across the country. shopBeacon is an Apple iBeacon-based presence signal for retailers that offers customers rewards, in a currency called "kicks," for a variety of actions they take as they go about shopping.

Sears and Kmart are the first companies to engage with the Pikato platform and have already seen mobile engagement rates soar 1,100%, according to Pikato.

Pikato’s retail mobile marketing solution personalizes the customer shopping experience to increase consumer engagement and deliver measurable results.

American Eagle plans to launch the ShopKick shopBeacon iBeacon solution in 100 top-performing American Eagle Outfitters and Aerie stores across the country. shopBeacon is an Apple iBeacon-based presence signal for retailers that offers customers rewards, in a currency called "kicks," for a variety of actions they take as they go about shopping.

Prism Skylabs, a global leading cloud service provider, has hired former Apple executive Cliff Crosbie as SVP of managed services.

Crosbie comes to Prism Skylabs after overseeing Apple’s global preferred reseller program. In his new role, he will be charged with growing Prism’s visual merchandising and auditing services

“I’ve never seen a merchandising or analytics solution as effective as Prism Skylabs,” said Crosbie. “I couldn’t be more excited to join the team.”
 

New York – Nicolas Franchet, head of e-commerce global vertical marketing at Facebook, said that compression of screen sizes as consumers switch to mobile devices is the biggest upcoming challenge retailers will face during a session titled “Data the Matters: The Future of Personalization” at the NRF 2014 Conference & Exposition on Sunday, Jan. 12.

Tysons Corner, Va. -- MicroStrategy Inc. announced that Guess has unveiled a new mobile app for its customers powered by the MicroStrategy Alert Platform.

Mobile point of sale (mPOS) technology promises to continue to transform the customer’s shopping experience in 2014 and beyond. Gartner forecasts an mPOS market valued at $617 billion with 448 million users by the end of 2016, representing 42% annual growth.

Retail is one of several sectors poised to benefit from mPOS. With that in mind, here are five trends that every retailer needs to be aware of in the space.