Artificial Intelligence

San Francisco –- New Seasons Market (NSM) is deploying the new Index online commerce personalization solution at its stores to deliver end-to-end security and personalized customer experiences. The collaboration with Index provides NSM with a real-time understanding of customer behavior while helping to deliver relevant product recommendations and shopping experiences that savvy consumers now expect both online and offline.

It has been fascinating to watch the back and forth in recent weeks as competing systems for mobile payment have suddenly been grabbing headlines and jockeying for space in the public consciousness.  

Framingham, Mass. -- By 2017, three times as many retailers as now will explicitly underpin their customer and operations strategies on 3rd platform technologies. That’s one of IDC Retail Insights’ top 10 worldwide retail predictions for 2015. IDC  revealed the predictions during a Web conference, IDC FutureScape: Worldwide Retail Agenda 2015 Predictions.        

By Jeremy Geiger, Retailigence   The headline is bold, but yes, 2014 is the year of hyperlocal mobile advertising, and there are three very important trends converging today to make this happen.   The first is smartphone proliferation; according to eMarketer, smartphone users worldwide will total nearly 2 billion in 2014.   

In the rapidly changing landscape for payments, market leader Vantiv is changing more rapidly than most as evidenced by dramatic growth in its transaction volume, revenues and profits.

Each of those measures surged during the company’s third quarter ended September 30. Thanks in large part to acquisitions, transaction volume in the merchant service group increased 31% which caused net revenue to increase 42% to $297.7 million. The company’s total revenue increased 31% to $697.1 million while adjusted net income increased 21% to $96.9 million, or 49 cents a share.

Scottsdale, Ariz. -- 360pi and JDA Software are partnering to optimize local pricing recommendations for retailers. This partnership integrates 360pi’s zone-based pricing intelligence for national and private label brands with JDA’s rules-based Strategic Pricing solution, part of JDA’s larger Price and Promotion Management portfolio.   

By Paul Rauker, VP of systems and controls at Daikin Applied  

By John Bible, Oracle