Marketing Tactics

Brooklyn, N.Y. -- Home furnishings retailer West Elm will open in New Orleans on July 24.

Located in the Lower Garden District, the approximately 10,000-sq.-ft. store is designed with installations inspired by New Orleans culture and will feature a local assortment made by Louisiana-based artisans that includes art, leather goods, vases and stationery.

Washington, D.C. - Daily deals site LivingSocial is featuring a summer promotion called the Daily Gem, a chance for additional savings on premium and custom-selected deals based on a shopper’s preferences. Each morning, LivingSocial shoppers will receive a personalized Daily Gem deal via email with the chance to save an additional 15% on top of existing savings if they purchase by 3 p.m. local time.

New York – Barnes & Noble Inc. is running month-long omnichannel “Get Pop-Cultured” pop culture promotion during July. The effort promotes books, characters, movies, artists, illustrators and pop culture icons with themed events, author signings, panel discussions, contests, exclusive content, giveaways and prizes, sneak peeks and activities.

Home furnishings retailer West Elm plans to open a new retail store in New Orleans, Louisiana, Thursday, July 24, at 10 a.m. — its first in the state.

Sears is looking to position itself as the go-to retailer for teens, and to that end has launched an exclusive fashion collection by Seventeen Magazine.

The full collection is available at 450 Sears stores nationwide as well as on Sears.com. Shop Your Way members and customers can shop the collection, enter sweepstakes and explore exclusive content from Seventeen Magazine at shopyourway.com.

Three year old New York-based start-up Unroll.Me announced it is up to one million users, a troubling development for companies who rely on email to connect with their customers.

Americans have never had greater access to amazing consumer electronics products thanks to eye-popping innovation that is translating to uneven growth and interesting implications for the holiday season, according to the latest sales projections from the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA).

New York -- Visa has entered into an agreement with Borderfree, a leading international cross-border e-commerce solutions provider, to offer customers in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Jordan, special promotions from retailers in the United States.

iBeacon technology, the Apple iOS 7 feature that helps mobile devices track their position relative to stationary beacons by using low-frequency Bluetooth transmissions, is getting quite a bit of attention from retailers. Grabbing their interest is not only that devices can obtain individualized information from beacons, but that beacons can also obtain individualized information from mobile devices.

By Russ Wilson, IBM director, Mobile Innovation Center

Millennials’ comfort with mobile technology, in a world where just about everything can be done with an app,  is driving businesses to provide apps of their own – enabling the purchasing of products and services in a way that is more natural to this tech savvy generation.