Artificial Intelligence

New York -- Research by ACI Worldwide and Aite Group has identified a new group of smartphone fanatics – coined Smartphonatics – are driving demand for mobile banking and other financial services.

As part of Chain Store Age’s lead-up coverage to RECon 2012, to be held May 20-23 in Las Vegas, we talked with customer analytics firm Buxton’s Charles Wetzel about what his expectations are for the big real estate show. Visit Buxton’s booth 701 in the North Hall Marketplace area of RECon.

Chicago -- Galleria Retail Technology Solutions said Tuesday that Lithuanian retailer Maxima Grupe will use a range of Galleria solutions to automate and optimize its merchandising strategy.

Maxima plans to implement Intelligent Store Optimization, Behavioural Cluster Planning, Customer Centric Merchandising and Galleria Foundation Services in more than 400 stores across Eastern Europe, according to Edvinas Volkas, chief food purchaser at Maxima group.

By Steve Castro-Miller, [email protected]

Ever wonder what the difference was between a consumer and a shopper, but were afraid to ask at the risk of a marketer spewing more jargon. Good news. Turns out consumers and shoppers are pretty much the same and have been all along.

Sleep Number, a division of Select Comfort Corp., takes shopping for mattresses and bedding accessories to a new level with its updated store design. The new prototype, which was designed by JGA, Southfield, Mich., replaces the traditional—and bland—sea of mattresses with a modern and interactive environment that elevates the customer journey and positions the product as hero. Sleep Number debuted the new design in Oakbrook Promenade, Oakbrook, Ill., and it has since been rolled out to 74 locations nationwide.

The seventh annual Best Companies for Leadership Study conducted by the global consulting firm the Hay Group ranked Walmart eighth.

Walmart’s eighth  place ranking on the top 20 list is one notch better than the prior year, but slightly below the company’s 6th place ranking in 2009 when it made the list for the first time.

On Monday, Barnes & Noble Inc. and Microsoft announced a strategic partnership in a new unnamed Barnes & Noble subsidiary that, for the time being, is being identified as Newco. Here some comments from retail consultant Maggie Gilliam (Gilliam Insights) on the new venture: