Data & Analytics

New York -- Calvin Klein has deployed an interactive shopping experience at Macy's Herald Square store in New York City, soon to be rolling out at 18 other Macy's locations nationwide this year. Using dynamic marketing technologies from Creative Realities, Calvin Klein is employing interactive touch display and sales assistance applications developed by Creative Realities to support shoppers as they navigate the denim category.   

Bentonville, Ark. –- Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is reportedly piloting a service called InstaWatch that lets customers obtain digital access to movies they buy in stores or on the Wal-Mart site.  

Charlotte, N.C. –- Bank of America has reportedly released a report saying that Chinese e-commerce platform Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is the leader in global e-commerce, followed by Amazon.com.    According to Benzinga.com, Alibaba currently holds 31% of global e-commerce market share and should grow to capture 33% of global e-commerce market share in 2015.    

Oklahoma City, Okla. –- With plans to open 28 stores by the end of 2014, 30 or more new stores during 2015 and 50-plus stores every year thereafter, the 300-plus-unit convenience and fuel chain Love’s Travel Stops & Country Stores needs a robust platform. As Love’s executives explained during a session at the recent SAP Retail Forum in New York, the retailer is turning to SAP to provide that platform.  

Hamilton, N.J. -- Voxware, a voice application company, announced that Whole Foods Market saw productivity gains of 25-35% after implementing the latest version of Voxware’s voice solution in the grocer’s largest distribution center. Whole Foods has expanded its deployment of Voxware Voice Management Suite to its other nine DCs with scheduled completion in Oct. 2014.  

Plug and Play brings together retailers and start-ups who offer specific technology and expertise that can relieve merchants’ pain points. Customer Disruption highlights one of those start-ups in each issue with a brief Q&A. This issue, the spotlight is on Aahlada Chennupati, CEO and co-founder of ProductPlay.   1) What does your company do?  

In what promises to be the most digital holiday season ever, Amazon has issued an appeal to shoppers who want to avoid busy parking lots, crowded stores and long checkout lines.

Amazon’s appeal to shoppers was made in conjunction with the release of the online retailers 2014 Holiday Toy List and compounds traditional retailers’ already challenging effort to generate traffic to stores during the holiday season.

Amazon Cloud Drive users now have access to their personal videos and photos from connected devices on the Amazon Instant Video app.

The feature is now available on PlayStation 3 and 4 along with select LG and Samsung smart TVs across the U.S., U.K. and Germany.

Fifty Best Buy stores nationwide have launched new interactive departments branded as, “The Intel Experience.”

What makes the initiative interesting is that Intel is a brand that powers many consumers electronics devices, but it isn’t a brand consumer directly seek out the way they do Samsung, Apple or LG.

A delayed start to the shopping season is causing consumers to postpone their holiday purchases until Thanksgiving weekend, according to the 2014 Holiday Purchase Intentions Survey from global information company The NPD Group.