Apple, Inc.

The generation born between the early 1980s and the year 2000 — labeled millennials — has captured the collective attention of retail marketers. And not just because there are more than 80 million of them, although that’s a factor. This group craves access, not necessarily ownership, and they have a real affinity for technology, which is shaping the retail space.

Hallmark Cards Inc. is ensuring it can effectively offer consumers the chance to create their own personalized products.

The Kansas City-based specialty gift retailer, which operates more than 30,000 U.S. stores as well as digitally, provides a custom gift option which allows shoppers to order items made to their tastes and specifications. This places strain on the company’s research and development (R&D) department.

Amazon.com has found another way to demonstrate its commanding lead in e-commerce – monthly unique visitors.

According to the comScore March 2016 rankings of the top 50 multi-platform (desktop and mobile) properties by unique U.S. work and home visits, Amazon sites received 180.97 million unique visitors. This ranked first among all predominantly retail web properties and fifth overall.

From hyperlocal social media intelligence to mobile survey creation, this month’s crop of startups is filling niche spaces that can have a big impact on a retailer’s business. Learn about an augmented reality platform that’s elevating the online experience, a social referral startup that makes it easy to spread rewarding word-of-mouth recommendations and an analytics company that helps retailers and CPG companies get the most out of their online and transaction-level customer data.

SurveyMe

Amazon.com is serving notice to Apple, PayPal and other leading online payment providers that it is looking to challenge their turf.

The online retail giant is launching a new program called the Amazon Payments Partner Program that enables e-commerce platforms to provide Amazon Payments functionality to their users. Previously, Amazon had made its proprietary payments service available to individual third-party online retailers.

Sleek. Minimalist. Innovative. Modern.

Those were among the words used most often by mystery shoppers to describe Apple’s next-generation store, located at Shops of Saddle Creek South in Germantown, Tennessee, a suburb of Memphis.

The shoppers are part of Field Agent, which provides on-location auditing and research via a network of 650,000 “agents” who collect data that can be monitored in real time by its clients. The company deployed several agents to visit and then review the store. The majority of the comments were glowing:

The nearly one-year-old online retail startup from Ron Johnson is expanding into new markets.

Enjoy, which sells higher-end consumer electronics that trained experts hand deliver and provide training for at no additional charge, has added Los Angeles to its delivery area. Its next market will be Chicago.

The company already services San Francisco and New York City.

Photo by Apple insider

Apple has take the wraps off its hotly anticipted next-generation store, which is located at the Shops of Saddle Creek South in Germantown, Tennessee, a suburb of Memphis.

The space features a massive display screen that stands nearly floor-to-ceiling at the wall opposite the store's all-glass entrance, reported AppleInsider.

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Apple Pay may finally be getting ready to move beyond mobile apps into the world of mobile browsers. According to Re/Code, Apple has been quietly notifying potential partners that the mobile payment service will be available via the Safari browser on iPhones and iPads that are equipped with Apple’s TouchID fingerprint technology, before the 2016 holiday season. This would directly compete with a similar browser-based mobile payment service offered by PayPal.

The number of U.S. businesses with solar energy installations grew to a new high in 2015. Enterprises ranging from family-run companies to some of the country’s biggest corporations are producing their own energy, cutting operating expenses and achieving environmental sustainability.

A recent report from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) provides data and insights into the diverse mix of corporate offices, office buildings, retail, manufacturing, data centers, distribution and logistics centers, and convention centers that have gone solar.