Data & Analytics

There has been a great deal written about omnichannel’s impact on the store, multichannel shopping behaviors and cross-channel fulfillment. What seems to have gone unreported, however, is the tremendous impact labor costs can have on profitably delivering the omnichannel shopping experiences consumers now demand.  

My latest retail IT-related travels took me to the Retail Experience Center at Microsoft headquarters (in Redmond, Washington), where I toured a simulated shopping mall environment that demonstrated a variety of innovative ways the company is using technology to enhance customer engagement for retailers.  Here are the three most interesting solutions from that visit:

A Beacon for Coffee Drinkers

The retail industry is accustomed to weak same store sales at Sears and Kmart, but the magnitude of the decline the company experienced in the first quarter was large even by its standards.

Retailers have a new way to drive sales thanks to a mobile-friendly upgrade to RetailMeNot’s popular app.

RetailMeNot, operator of the nation’s largest digital offers marketplace with more than 18 million unique monthly users, introduced the first version of a new “products” section on its app that features popular items.

The new product functionality offers a deep link to retailers’ mobile optimized sites, providing a way to help retailers market specific products in addition to the other promotional capabilities offered by RetailMeNot.

Food Lion has launched a new web site designed to make shopping, saving and planning for dinner easy for shoppers.

A new NRF survey reports that Father's Day spending this year is expected to reach $12.7 billion.

American Signature is expanding an in-store tablet technology initiate running on the CloudTags platform after a pilot program yielded impressive results.

American Signature, operator of 124 stores, is using the CloudTags technology solution to allow customers to seamlessly shop online and in-store. Customers are offered a CloudTags-enabled tablet upon entering the store and tap on special product tags placed on each piece of furniture throughout the showroom.

Bentonville, Ark. -- Speaking at Wal-Mart Stores’ annual shareholders meeting in Bentonville, Arkansas, president and CEO Doug McMillon told the more than 14,000 assembled associates and shareholders that he is more worried about the enemy within the company than competitors.

“The truth is the real villains are lurking within the company,” said McMillon. “Our real villains are things like bureaucracy, complacency, a lack of speed, or a lack of passion.”

New York -- Brick-and-mortar stores are still relevant, with 87% of consumers planning to shop physical retail at least as often as they did in 2014, according to a study by TimeTrade Systems. What’s more, 65% of respondents report that if an item they want is available online or in a nearby store, they prefer to shop in the store.

New York -- Just under half of retail firms expect industry expansion, and over two-thirds will consider seeking additional financing in the coming year. And 45% believe the sector will expand in the year ahead. That’s according to a survey by GE Capital of C-suite executives at middle market companies (ranging from $10 million to less than $1 billion in sales).

Performance in the middle-market retail sector was positive over the past year, the survey found, with 75% of firms reporting improved year-over-year financial performance.