Predictive Analytics

Target Corp. is going high-tech with efforts to improve employee fitness. All 335,000 U.S. employees of Target will be offered free or subsidized wearable digital activity trackers from Fitbit Inc.

As part of the program, management will have a dashboard that can track individual employees by activities such as how many steps they take in a day. The basic FitBit Zip device will be provided free, or Target will help employees pay for a costlier FitBit wristband device.

NFC-enabled contactless mobile payments, such as those enabled by smartphone-based digital wallet services like Apple Pay and Android Pay, currently make up a tiny fraction of card transactions. However, a new study from Indian mobile solutions provider Mahindra Comviva suggests contactless mobile payments are set to grow quickly.

Mobile marketing platform provider OtherLevels has some advice for retailers looking to looking boost usage rates of their consumer apps.

According to the company’s “2015 Mobile Retail Messaging Study,” regular mobile messaging can increase consumer usage of retail apps.

San Francisco – Marketers and consumers are both discovering mobile apps in a big way.

According to the second Mobile App Advertising Trends Report from marketing technology provider Kenshoo, marketers increased their investment in mobile apps 293% in June 2015, compared to the same period a year earlier.

This increased investment followed a 346% increase consumer mobile app installs and 32% increase in click-to-install rate.

Silicon Valley’s Winchester House confounds visitors from around the world. An eccentric heiress spent decades adding endless rooms and hallways, doors that lead to nowhere, and random structural additions — turning a home into an inscrutable, imposing and meandering oddity.

New York -- More and more consumers are browsing, creating baskets and making purchases from their smartphones, according to the latest Demandware Shopping Index.

Globally, phones accounted for 94% of the year over year increase in e-commerce traffic, 74% of the increase in basket creation and 47% of the order growth.

Today’s customers are firmly in charge of the buying process. The Internet allows them to research products and prices at the click of a button, and in most cases, they are better informed about what’s available in the marketplace than the associates in brick-and-mortar stores. And, the retail environment is more crowded – and less personalized – than ever before.