Digital Marketing

Whole Foods is aiming to make life for customers in 15 cities a little more convenient. The company has entered into a partnership with grocery delivery service Instacart that enables customers to have Whole Foods Market products delivered to them in one hour.

Customers will soon also be able to place orders via Instacart and pick them up local participating Whole Foods Market stores, making Whole Foods the first national Instacart partner to offer the in-store pickup service.

Instagram has become a mainstream social media tool for retailers. However, while most retailers limit their Instagram usage to maintaining an official page or encouraging customers to post photos with Instagram hashtags as part of promotional campaigns, some retailers are more forward-thinking in their Instagram approach.

Here are three retailers showing real insight in how they are leveraging Instagram to its fullest potential:

By Sanford Stein, founder, Stein LLC

With the point-of-sale tucked away in one’s backpack, pocket or purse, how does the store-based retailer expect to survive in an e-everything world? And what is to become of the malls, the meccas of economic indulgence that were driven by the shop-till-you-drop dynamic we thought would last forever? We are currently in a period of just such a change wave, driven by a dramatic demographic shift, corporate downsizing, economic stagnation, and rising costs.

Pittsburgh – Dick’s Sporting Goods has launched an extensive update of its mobile app. The updated app offers features including access to the ScoreCard rewards program, a store locator, and in-app purchase functionality.

Phoenix – Sprouts Farmers Market has teamed up with Nashville, Tenn.-based integrated ad agency Redpepper to use omnichannel marketing to produce market awareness and traffic for four new stores in the suburban Atlanta area. In addition to traditional outdoor, print, radio and newspaper ads, Sprouts used Facebook- and email-based marketing techniques.

J.C. Penney is launching a new online sports store that will be powered by Fanatics, an online retailer of officially licensed sports merchandise.

Fanatics operates an e-commerce platform for hundreds of collegiate and professional sports teams, leagues and media sites. Now, it will provide sports fans with a selection of team apparel and merchandise at JCPenney.com, offering more than 300,000 licensed products spanning all the major sports leagues.

New York -- With U.S. social commerce sales expected to reach $14 billion by 2015 and social networks like Twitter and Facebook ramping up their commerce capabilities, a survey by global marketing and technology agency DigitasLBi, and conducted online by Harris Poll, shows that while only 5% of Americans have made a purchase on a social media site, 20% would consider doing so.

Sterling, Va. - Neustar Inc., a provider of real-time information services and analytics, has entered a partnership with comScore Inc. that will give marketers a unified marketing solution incorporating comScore’s validated Campaign Essentials (vCE) ad validation metrics in its offering. The partnership builds on Neustar PlatformOne’s capabilities and partner ecosystem and enhances its ability to provide marketers with the visibility needed to measure and optimize digital campaigns.

By Joe Tichar, senior VP of corporate operations, DDR, Beachwood, Ohio

Forward-thinking retailers are increasingly leveraging their brick-and-mortar locations to establish omnichannel models that meet the growing consumer demand for a more convenient, more cost-effective and more personalized shopping experience.
 

New York - Saks Fifth Avenue is launching a user-generated content hub on Saks.com called #SaksStyle. Created by Curalate on its Fanreel image integration platform, #SaksStyle will function as a daily go-to guide for fashion inspiration created solely by Saks customers, highlighting products purchased from Saks Fifth Avenue locations nationwide and online.