Data & Analytics

As the holiday season approaches, many retailers will ramp up their staff to accommodate the increase in customers and other operational demands. However, in today’s era of widespread employment litigation, employers must be even more conscientious of the legal liabilities and practical consequences they face during this time of year.

Despite the fast-paced nature of the holiday rush, companies should still conduct their due diligence when screening new employees, whether they are long-term or seasonal.

With all the attention being paid to mobile commerce, wearable technology and other cutting-edge developments in the world of retail IT, the in-store POS terminal is sometimes taken for granted.

Combining system controls in refrigeration, HVAC and lighting is key

Retail facility directors continually look for ways to drive down operational costs, but are limited in their efforts without a strong control system. Installation of a facility control system can provide savings and improve operations of a small-format retail store if adhered to well.

Why is it important to use controls to ensure store policies are being enforced?

Wal-Mart Stores is stepping up its use of solid-state lighting in a big way.

The discounter is installing LED ceiling lighting fixtures in new U.S.

While gift cards are still made of plastic, digitally formatted gifts cards are increasing in popularity. (According to research by payments giant First Data, electronic gift card sales grew 71% from 2012 to 2013.) Consumers particularly like the customization options — including video and audio in some instances — that some retailers offer with digital cards.

The LED revolution sweeping the building industry is now ready for the next stage: intelligent lighting control, which has the potential to transform the retail environment by making it more flexible, better understood and connective with shoppers.

LEDs are inherently dimmable, and many LED products are sold with dimming capability regardless of how the owner plans to control them.

With some 3,200 franchised, independently owned and corporate stores, the fast-growing Danish jewelry retailer Pandora needs to ensure customer relationship management (CRM) consistency throughout its operation — especially during the heavily promotional holiday season. It does so by using the Microsoft Dynamics CRM system and a retail portal based on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform.

Furniture doesn’t leap to mind as a common holiday gift item. But by optimizing its customer experience for mobile devices and utilizing advanced personalization, Chattanooga, Tennessee-based online retailer Smart Furniture (which also runs a single flagship store) is making consumers think of the home for the holidays.

“Last year, we had the single biggest traffic pattern shift in company history,” said T.J. Gentle, president and CEO of Smart Furniture.

While holiday forecasts are just starting to come out, most industry experts agree that retailers can expect mobile to command a bigger share of online shopping. Forrester projects $294 billion in e-commerce sales across 30 retail categories in 2014, with $87 billion of the total occurring on phones and tablets in 2014. A report by IBM forecasts that mobile will account for more than 20% of site sales and more than 43% of site traffic, by November 2014.

“Mobile should be a primary purchase channel within a few years,” said Bill Davis, director of MB&G Consulting.

Everyone knows that stores need extra staff during the holiday shopping rush, but there is a big difference between carefully scheduling employees when and where they are needed and simply adding bodies to a store’s headcount. San Francisco-based beauty retailer Sephora has come up with a solution: The company is expanding its use of the Ceridian Dayforce workforce management platform to adjust holiday staffing according to both historical sales data and current trends.

“We forecast the entire quarter’s sales and payroll,” explained Gino Filice, IT manager of Sephora.