Loyalty Marketing

Chain Store Age recently sat down with Stefan Weitz, chief product and strategy officer of omnichannel commerce and service provider Radial (formerly eBay Enterprise), to discuss how retailers can offer a seamless experience and have a successful holiday.
    
What is the biggest challenge retailers face when trying to enable omnichannel?

In many cases, it’s thinking they can do omnichannel by themselves.

Update on retail’s most important time of the year

It’s no secret that online shopping and changing consumer preferences continue to impact physical retail traffic. Despite the shifting landscape, retail sales remain largely intact and, more importantly, are expected to increase year-over-year this holiday season.

November and December are prime time for physical retailers.

A company named after the first reptile to develop the feather for flight — archaeopteryx lithographica — is moving to expand its fledgling store portfolio.

Founded in 1991, Vancouver, British Columbia-based Arc’teryx is a manufacturer of high-performance outdoor apparel and equipment. Although the brand’s roots lie in the climbing landscape, it has long since expanded to include skiing, backpacking and other outdoor activities.

Ulta Beauty on Thursday posted another spectacular quarter amid surging sales. It was the ninth consecutive quarter that the beauty retailer topped expectations.    Ulta reported net income for the quarter, ended July 30, rose 21.3% to $90.0 million compared to $74.2 million in the year ago period.    Net sales increased 21.9% to $1.07 billion from $877.0 million in the year-ago quarter.   

On Aug. 8, Walmart announced it would buy Jet.com -- one of the fastest growing e-commerce companies in the U.S. -- for a whopping $3 billion.   

Beauty giant Sephora scores the highest when it comes to online gifting.    That’s according to RSR Research’s sixth annual digital gifting benchmarking report.  Sephora came out on top, scoring 55 points out of a possible 66 points, followed by Starbucks (50.5) and The Home Depot (46.5). Rounding out the top five: Dunkin’ Donuts (44.5) and Amazon (43). (The top 25 retailers in the study are listed at the end of article.)