Data & Analytics

San Antonio, Texas -- InvenTrust Properties Corp. announced that it has acquired Sonterra Village Shopping Center, a newly constructed, 42,492 sq. ft. shopping center located in San Antonio, Texas, for approximately $21.5 million.

Count Macy’s among the retailers who realize a seamless customer experience starts in the back end.

Macy’s is supporting a new omnichannel order fulfillment program called “Pick to the Last Unit” (P2LU) with Tyco’s TrueVUE RFID inventory visibility platform,

Mobile technology is helping shoppers at Scranton, Pennsylvania-based Gerrity’s Super Market Inc. check out much more conveniently.

Gerrity’s is beta testing a checkout app from mobile grocery solution provider Skip. The app, which Gerrity’s is the first retailer to test, lets customers scan items with their phone and place it in their cart or basket. For produce or other items that need to be weighed, shoppers place the goods on Skip scales that weight them and present a barcode for the price.

As always, it seems to have blurred by before it even started, but NRF 2016 is over. As the retail industry collectively unpacks it bags, sorts through business cards and decompresses, I’d like to offer a few key trends I observed during my own three days of Big Show immersion.

Back to Basics

2016 will be a year when many niche innovations in customer experience will become mainstream as consumers expect more out of their shopping experiences, forcing traditional retailers to step up or risk becoming irrelevant. Marketplace buzzwords and emerging trends, such as personalization and seamless mobile access, will become table-stake elements of the customer experience.

Here are ways retailers will take their customer experience to the next level:

Personalization

When providing the BDO retail IPO outlook for 2015 at the beginning of this year, we asked: Will consumer businesses face a potential Alibaba hangover in 2015?

Rite Aid has rolled out proximity beacons in more than 4,500 stores across the U.S., which, according to tech news website ZDNet, is the largest rollout of beacon technology ever in a retail setting.

A new study shows that consumer demand for mobile technology has reached a fever pitch, with most shoppers trending toward mobile-friendly retailers.

According to a study by SOTI, differentiating with mobile technology is proving successful among retailers, with 73% of survey respondents stating the availability of in-store mobile technology signaled better customer service and loyalty, an increase of 26% from the previous year.

Story, the 2,000-sq.-ft. Manhattan store that changes its theme, interior design and product mix every four to eight weeks, is teaming up with health services provide Cigna for its next iteration.

The retailer will unveil its “Feel Good” concept on Tuesday, Jan. 19. The installation will be open through Feb. 28, and customers will be able to participate in a variety of classes and panel discussions focusing on health and wellness, in addition to shopping for the latest trends in healthy living.

“Now Trending” is an exclusive online series to chainstoreage.com, featuring trending topics that impact the retail real estate landscape.

As more of my work brings me into contact with mixed-use developments in urban core markets, it’s clear to me that there are some important changes taking place – changes that are fueling the ongoing mixed-use renaissance in many cities.