Social Media

Petaluma, Calif. -– Revenue coming from smartphones grew 141% year-over-year during the third quarter of fiscal 2014. According to a study from e-commerce platform provider Market Live, cultural shifts in shopping habits are revealing changes in traditional metrics; for example, mobile is creating a trend toward lower conversion rates and shorter time-on-site metrics caused by more shoppers researching products on their mobile phones and completing their purchases at a later time.

New York -- Stylinity, a new mobile app letting users share shoppable images and earn rewards for purchases they influence is now available for download on iTunes. Instead of hashtagging brands, users use their iPhones to scan price tags and attach product information to their photos, creating a shoppable link embedded in the image.    

Menlo Park, Calif. –- Net income soared 90% to $806 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2014 from $425 million in the same quarter a year earlier, as part of strong overall performance by Facebook Inc. A sharp increase in operating income helped drive the net income growth.  

Micaela Erlanger, a stylist to the stars and a self-proclaimed "vintage-a-holic, and glamour girl," has joined the Maidenform brand as an ambassador and spokesperson through March 2015.

Erlanger will guide the Maidenform customer, offering  tips, picks and styling insight via the brand's website and social media platforms.

A strong start to holiday season at Toys “R” hinges on a carefully curated offering of merchandise offered online and in a catalog known as The Great Big Christmas Book being distributed to households this week.

Sears and Amazon.com both recently came under fire for allowing rings decorated with the Nazi swastika symbol to be posted for sale on their third-party seller sites. While both retailers quickly pulled the items down and issued public apologies, they received a large amount of negative publicity and surely damaged their brand image with many offended customers, perhaps to the point of permanently losing some of them.

Teaneck, N.J. –- Consumers have embraced the use of mobile devices for shopping, but are less than fully satisfied with the current mobile retail experience. According to a new survey of more than 5,000 shoppers in the U.S., U.K., Germany, and China from IT services and consulting firm Cognizant, 91% of shoppers have a mobile device, 78% have researched products on a mobile device before purchasing in the last year, and 42% of shoppers reported regularly researching products on a mobile device.  

West Chester, Penn. –- QVC Inc. has promoted Mary Campbell to the position of executive VP, US commerce platforms. Sheis responsible for guiding the strategic direction of the company's TV, web, mobile, tablet and social while translating the QVC brand across all platforms to drive customer engagement and e-commerce sales.   Since joining QVC in 1991, Campbell has held leadership roles across the business, including merchandising, planning and commerce platforms.

Seattle –- VenueLabs is launching a free social listening tool geared for small businesses called AboutLocal. AboutLocal lets small retailers listen to and engage with customers in real time across hundreds of disparate channels.  

Any retail marketer today understands that the value of a loyalty program lies in the data it collects and the ability to target consumers based on that data. But in today’s omnichannel environment, consumers have expectations on of how retailers are using their information what that data is “buying” them -- expectations that retailers are struggling to meet.

Digital Challenges