Consumer Analytics

Layaway program have become all the rage the past few years as retailers seeks to offer shoppers every conceivable convenience to capture every available sales dollar.

Dallas -- SAP has launched a new service to help retailers influence consumer behavior at the moment of decision.
 
SAP's Precision Retailing solution is said to deliver personalized offers and suggestions in real time to consumers across multiple channels, including mobile devices, in-store kiosks and websites. The company also announced the SAP Retail Store Ops Manager mobile app to further enhance in-store productivity.

Los Angeles -- Survey results released Tuesday by online shopping site PriceGrabber found that 88% of shoppers plan to research their holiday gift purchases in advance to find the best deals.

Of those, 38% plan to spend three to six hours researching holiday gift purchases, 29% plan to spend up to two hours, 19% said they plan to spend over 10 hours and 14% indicated between seven and 10 hours.

New York -- Smartphone and Internet users actively seek out and prefer to engage with mobile-friendly sites, but such sites must meet certain expectations in order to convert users from visitors to consumers, according to a Google study conducted by independent market research firms Sterling Research and SmithGeiger.

Pleasanton, Calif. -- Grocer Safeway Inc. said Tuesday it has extended its corporate social responsibility commitment with the introduction of a new program it calls Heart of Safeway Pledge, which encourages consumers and communities to be more conservative and socially responsible.

Vancouver -- LightHaus  announced that Foot Locker has deployed the LightHaus Visual Customer Intelligence (VCI) solution to measure customer traffic and sales conversion rates at all of its Champs Sports stores in the U.S. and Canada, as well as its Foot Locker Canada stores. The chain is adopting LightHaus VCI in stores in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Australia.

Louisville, Colo. -- Envysion, Inc., the leading Managed Video as a Service (MVaaS) provider, announced that Chick-fil-A has selected Envysion as a video provider. Chick-fil-A, a leading quick-service chicken restaurant with more than 1,600 locations in the United States, will use Envysion to improve operations, training and customer service.

St. Petersburg, Fla. -- After launching an enhancement program designed to assist tenants toward ramping up sales, Sembler Co. said it will be expanding its “Sembler Advantage” program portfolio-wide.

Currently, 30 tenants have completed the program, according to Sembler, and have learned tips and techniques for jump-starting a small business, such as incentivizing employees to bring in new business.