Apple, Inc.

By Tom Stockham, [email protected]

Remember the days when stores differentiated themselves against the competition on service? When consumers sought out expert product recommendations from knowledgeable sales associates? And bought from the one who worked hardest to help them find just the right product for their needs?

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.

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.”
 

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

Guess has unveiled a new mobile app for its customers powered by the MicroStrategy Alert Platform.

The new Guess app, which is available simultaneously on Apple iOS and Android devices, offers a personalized high-interactivity loyalty channel between Guess and its customers through their mobile phones. It merges social loyalty with traditional loyalty by rewarding brand ambassador customers for extending Guess campaigns and promotions through their social networks (Facebook, Twitter, SMS, or email).

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.

Minneapolis -- Direct Source is enabling its retail customers to protect their mobility investments and help ensure worker productivity with help-desk and mobile device management (MDM) services through its relationship with Enterprise Mobile. The Enterprise Mobile offering supports all operating systems, including Apple iOS, Windows, Blackberry and Android, letting retailers outsource ongoing management for devices used by corporate employees and store associates.

Cupertino, Calif. – Apple Inc. has reportedly opened a digital store on the Chinese online marketplace Tmall. According to the Wall Street Journal, the design of the Tmall digital store is similar to the design of Apple’s own Chinese e-commerce site.