Business Intelligence (BI)

To cut through the noise in a cluttered marketplace, Express Gifts is getting personal.    With 35,000 products sold and a growing online presence, web-based sales continue to drive significant turns for Express Gifts. However, to understand and influence their online visitors, the gifting retailer knew personalization was critical to extend the loyalty of their existing customer base, and increase market share.  

While retailers are focused on unified commerce, most retailers’ planning tools are not capable of supporting this digital environment.   This message was revealed in Boston Retail Partners’ “2016 Merchandise Planning Survey,” a report based on responses from more than 500 North American retailers. The report delivers insight into retailers’ planning initiatives, priorities and future trends.   

Lighting is fundamental to any retail store, whether that is for setting a scene and influencing how a brand is perceived, or even encouraging shoppers to make a particular purchase. However, if not managed correctly, it can be extremely expensive. In fact, lighting accounts for around 53% off all electricity consumption in a typical retail outlet, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.  

Pinterest is launching a new program designed to help brand partners present more relevant advertising messages to Pinners.   Through a partnership with Neustar, Pinterest’s marketing partners now have a solution that leverages the social media platform’s customer-specific information as well as Neustar’s proprietary audiences. The combination of data gives advertisers a standardized view of customer across every marketing channel, and an unprecedented reach among customers.   

Omnichannel adoption is a prerequisite to remain relevant in today’s retail world. Yet, many retailers are still missing the mark.   That is the message delivered in “Five Insights into the Omnichannel Landscape,” a benchmark report from eTail East and WBR Digital.  The study reveals progress among multiple retail sectors, including specialty retail, apparel, and high-end fashion apparel, among others.  

In a move to spur its digital transformation, Toys “R” Us has appointed Amit Poddar to head up its digital engineering team.   Poddar is joining the toy retailer as senior VP, chief software architect. The addition is the latest strategic move within the company’s massive digital transformation, a project that is focused on integrating technology into every part of the business, and creating a more customer-centric operation.   

Chain Store Age will sponsor a webinar on one of the most important issues facing store retailers: How to give frontline store associates the critical knowledge they need to drive sales and customer satisfaction.     

Auditing your shipping invoices saves money. But just as importantly it yields valuable business intelligence through a rich depository of captured data that helps you make informed decisions as you improve operations.  

More retailers are eager to ward off far-reaching cyber-attacks, yet too many companies are ill-equipped to quickly detect a breach.   This sobering detail was revealed in a new study from Tripwire. The study tapped 763 IT professionals from various industries, including 100 participants from the retail sector. The report measures the confidence and efficacy among the professionals in regard to seven key security controls that must be in place to quickly detect a cyber-attack in progress.  

After U.S. payment networks implemented a liability shift in October 2015, merchants that did not support EMV became liable for chargebacks from credit card fraud. Many merchants have evaluated their risk based on chargeback history, and some were surprised by their post-shift fraud volume. This gave rise in the industry to various rumors, misinformation and theories about the cause of this change in fraud volume.