IBM

By Navneet Loiwal, Shopular

Mobile was all the rage during the 2014 holiday buying season. But the mobile buzz of late hasn’t just been about mobile purchasing. More consumers are now retail deal-hunting by mobile than in previous years – creating an entirely new paradigm for handheld devices as it relates to information gathering and comparative shopping, versus the act of completing an actual purchase.
 

Seattle – Nordstrom Inc. has named Shellye L. Archambeau, CEO of GRC/quality management software provider MetricStream Inc., to the company's board of directors. Her addition brings the total number of directors to 13, 10 of whom serve as independent directors.

Armonk, N.Y. - Consumers headed online for their Valentine’s Day shopping this year. According to IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark data, during Valentine’s week (Feb. 7 – 13) online shopping rose 10.2% from the same period in 2014.

In addition to overall sales, consumers ramped up their shopping efforts the week leading up to Valentine’s Day. Growth was seen in key verticals including:

London – U.K. digital department store retailer Shop Direct is moving to a hybrid cloud model, hosted by IBM, to increase flexibility and quickly respond to changes in demand as it grows. IBM’s cloud will underpin the delivery of a suite of analytics, mobile, social and security offerings that will enable Shop Direct to improve its customers’ online shopping experience while empowering its workforce to collaborate more easily and improve productivity.

King of Prussia, Pa. – EBay Enterprise, an EBay Inc. company, has selected IBM as a hybrid cloud platform to enhance its Magento Hosting Partner ecosystem.

This agreement is designed to expand global infrastructure options for Magento's more than 240,000 retail users by giving them access to the IBM SoftLayer infrastructure.

(L-R) Target's Brian Cornell and Walgreens' Alexander Gourlay

Retailers already knew they had work to do to better meet online shoppers’ expectations, just maybe not as much as revealed by new research from IBM.

New York -- It appears there is a disconnect between consumer attitudes and behaviors with regards to their digital interactions. In a survey by IBM, 43% of consumers said they prefer to shop online, but only 29% actually made their last purchase online. In some product categories such as youth apparel or home décor, there is a nearly 20-point gap between the percentage of people that say they enjoy shopping online and the percentage of people who actually made their last purchase online in those categories.

Wearables
In 2015, consumers will inevitably begin to integrate wearable connective technology more into their daily lives. For example, Luxottica Group S.pA. is launching a multiyear R&D collaboration with Intel Corp. to create eyewear infused with smart technology. The ultimate goal is to deliver smart, fashion-forward products that are meaningful and desirable to consumers. The first product from Intel and Luxottica is expected to launch in 2015.

Armonk, N.Y. – Retailers are suffering fewer cyber attacks, but for hackers it is becoming a situation of quality over quantity. According to findings released by IBM, despite a 50% decline in the number of cyber attacks against U.S. retailers, the number of records stolen from them remains at near record highs.