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Lowe’s Companies Inc. is expanding its use of augmented and virtual reality to help customers truly “visualize” home improvement projects.

When it comes to buying products, consumers are particular about who and what they trust to get advice.

According to a survey of nearly 14,000 adults conducted in early March by social retail technology provider Collective Bias, Facebook and YouTube are the most persuasive social channels for consumer purchases. About 19% of consumers find Facebook to influence their purchasing decision most, with YouTube coming in second at nearly 18%. YouTube is especially popular with men (23%) compared to women (14%).

PayPal is entering the buy button arena in a big way.

The new PayPal Commerce service, currently running in closed beta, allows retailers to embed buy buttons into any digital format they choose. This includes blogs, emails, online ads, apps, and social shares. PayPal Commerce is based on a set of open application program interfaces (APIs) and also offers a software developer kit (SDK), making it platform-agnostic and fully embeddable.

Trying to picture how home improvements will look in your mind’s eye can be tough, and Lowe’s is using emerging technology to expand the view.

Kyle Nel, executive director of Lowe’s Innovation Labs, recently told Chain Store Age how retailer’s proprietary technology development center is developing an app for the new Project Tango virtual reality (VR) mobile platform. Jointly created by Google and computer technology company Lenovo, Project Tango provides mobile devices with spatial capabilities.

Plus-size fashion retailer Torrid has a new model to showcase in its latest omnichannel marketing campaign.

The company has announced the winner of its model search: Lyanna Lynette. The 26-year-old Southern beauty was revealed in a 12-episode Web series on YouTube. The first of its kind in plus-size fashion, the series follows the four finalists as they compete to become the Face of Torrid 2016. The series can be watched, in full, on Torrid's YouTube channel.

Although it still only represents a small percentage of total retail sales, e-commerce is one of the biggest subjects in retail for 2016.

Shipping software provider TrueShip offers the following list of 10 predictions for the direction of e-commerce in the new year.

In many ways, 2015 marked the year the customer truly took over. Retailers recognized that constant connectivity and increasingly sophisticated consumer devices have created an environment where customers decide what they want, when and how they want it, and then choose the retailer who can best meet their needs.

In this environment, retailers scrambled to engage customers in a more personalized and direct way than ever before. Here are the top three customer engagement trends of 2015.

On the Go

According to analytics reports from Adobe and RetailNext, online sales trumped bricks-and-mortar over Black Friday weekend and the trend looks to continue throughout the 2015 holiday season.