Business Intelligence (BI)

By Ben Pivar, Senior VP, Retail Leader, North America, Capgemini

Showrooming may not be as concerning as many traditional retailers once thought. In fact, retailers who embrace clienteling and other strategies can leverage showrooming as an element of the overall all-channel experience for their customers. Through the use of new technologies as well as in-store and online strategies, many of those retailers who have tested clienteling have experienced a lift in customer conversion.

Shoemaker Steve Madden is partnering with omnichannel personalization company Certona to tailor shoppers’ experiences online.

“We are proud to add Steve Madden to our roster of fashion clients,” Certona CEO Meyar Sheik said. “Certona will enable Steve Madden to best connect and engage with their loyal community while delivering the most personalized customer experiences across their touchpoints.”

Redmond, Wash. - Microsoft Corp. is enacting a restructuring plan to simplify its organization and align the recently acquired Nokia mobile devices and services business with the company’s overall strategy. These steps will result in the elimination of up to 18,000 positions in the next year.

eBay enabled record levels of e-commerce and transaction volume via its PayPal subsidiary during the second quarter ended June 30.

The global commerce platform and payments leader said revenue for the period increased 13% to $4.4 billion as the volume of e-commerce activity it facilitated (a metric eBay calls Enabled Commerce Volume or ECV) increased 26% to $62 billion. Net income increased 6% to $676 million, or 53 cents a share, compared to net income of $640 million, or 49 cents a share.

San Jose, Calif. -- EBay Inc. on Wednesday reported that its second quarter earnings rose 5.6%, topping analysts' expectations.

The company posted $676 million in net income, up from $640 million in the same quarter a year ago.

Revenue rose 13% to $4.37 billion from $3.88 billion in the same quarter a year ago.
 

Salt Lake City - Frederic Van Roie has joined the business development team of Big Data management software provider Park City Group.

Van Roie is a 25-year veteran of the retail, CPG and foodservice industries with expertise in marketing and merchandising strategies at several premier retailers, including Costco, BJ’s, Home Depot, Whole Foods, D’Agostino’s, Walmart and Safeway.

New York -- At first glance, the IBM-Apple partnership may seem to do little more than formalize a connection between two technologies that are mainstays of most retailers’ infrastructures. The fact is many retailers already use Apple iPhones and iPads as devices for in-store activities like product lookup, checkout and inventory management. And IBM is a leading provider of retail data analytics technology.
 

New York -- IBM, and Apple have entered into a comprehensive partnership to spread advanced mobile and data analysis technology in the corporate world. The deal brings together two historic competitors.

The two companies are jointly working on, and will release, more than 100 mobile applications tailored to work with IBM’s data analytics and cloud services developed exclusively for Apple’s iOS operating system and for use on iPhones and iPads.

Redlands, Calif. — Esri announced the next generation of its Tapestry Segmentation system, which reflects a decade of analysis of major U.S. events such as the housing boom of the early 2000s and its long-term impacts on the U.S. population.

Santa Monica, Calif. – Savings website Savings.com has launched PriceJUmp, an online tool that instantly compares Amazon product prices to prices around the Web. Users copy the URL of the product page they are viewing on Amazon and paste it into the PriceJump website search box.