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  • Brands to Watch in 2016

    Which brands will break new ground, fall from grace, or overcome obstacles in 2016? Here’s my list of brands to watch in 2016. Since I couldn’t narrow the list to a handful as I’ve done in past years, I decided to expand the list to 26, one for each letter of the alphabet.

    So here’s a brand-builder’s almanac for the coming year:

  • The North Face uses artificial intelligence to engage with customers

    Specialty outdoor retailer The North Face is engaging its nature-oriented online customers in a very down-to-earth way.

    The North Face is launching a new interactive online shopping experience. Using the IBM Watson artificial intelligence platform and Fluid XPS intuitive recommendation engine, customers can now use natural conversation as they shop online to receive personalized outerwear recommendations.

  • Giant Eagle flies to the cloud

    The latest autumn migration involves grocery chain Giant Eagle.

    The Pittsburgh-based, 420-plus-store retailer is in the initial stages of overhauling its IT infrastructure with a hybrid cloud solution from IBM Cloud. The new solution, based on IBM Cloud's SoftLayer Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), is designed to provide Giant Eagle flexible, consumption-based pricing, as well as faster procurement and customized deployment of applications.

  • Carhartt dives deep into online consumer data

    Vertical specialty workwear retailer Carhartt Inc. is gaining an unprecedented view into what customers want, when they want it.

    Carhartt is leveraging the new IBM Commerce Insights solution that is designed to help online retailers evaluate category and product performance for quick merchandising decisions. Leveraging cognitive capabilities from Watson Analytics,IBM Commerce Insights provides a single view of customer behavioral, market and business performance data directly on Carhartt’s storefront.

  • What vendor is the leading retail software provider?

    One well-known technology provider takes the top spot in installed worldwide revenue for both retail software and retail software-as-a-service (SaaS).

    According to a new study from IHL Group, “Total Retail Software Market,” Microsoft is ranked number one in both categories. IHL estimates the total worldwide retail software market is currently worth $44 billion and will grow 48% in the next five years. Microsoft’s share of retail software is estimated at $5.98 billion in installed revenue.

  • Cyber Monday spending hits all-time high

    Cyber Monday 2015 will be a day for the retail record books, at least until next holiday season.

  • Black Friday weekend goes digital

    Consumer spending across digital channels showed significant year-over-year growth over this year's Thanksgiving weekend.

    According to data from ComScore, desktop spending surpassed $1 billion on both Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Consumers sitting at desktop PCs spent a total of $1.1 billion, up 9% from $1.01 billion in 2014. On Black Friday, desktop spending grew 10% to $1.66 billion from $1.5 billion.

  • Cyber Monday looks strong out of the gate

    Early indicators point to retailers having an historically strong Cyber Monday.

    According to the Adobe Digital Index, as of 10 a.m. ET on Monday, Nov. 30, Cyber Monday online sales had already reached $490 million. Considering Cyber Monday online sales in 2014 reached a total of around $2 billion, and early Cyber Monday sales were tracking ahead of the prior year by 14%, this is a very possible start to a record-breaking day.

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