Data & Analytics

Stores are once again the darlings of retail — even e-commerce pure plays are scrambling to establish brick-and-mortar locations, while established brands are busy exploring new ways to leverage their existing physical footprint. Many predicted that the store would survive — and indeed thrive — but few realized the full degree to which stores would become a coveted link within today’s customer-driven “commerce anywhere” shopping experience.

Retailers looking for ways to enhance the customer experience could learn from a new attraction at Hershey’s Chocolate World.

This summer, guests at Hershey’s Chocolate World will be treated to a delicious new Chocolate Tasting Experience, find their favorites in Hershey’s Largest Candy Store and mix their favorites at the new Amazing Candy Machine.

In the new Chocolate Tasting Experience, guests can immerse themselves in the flavorful world of chocolate tasting.

Ann Arbor, Mich. — Some people love pizza so much they get emotional about it. Now Domino’s Pizza is letting them express those emotions by placing preset delivery orders via pizza text emoji.

Customers who opt into Domino’s new mobile text ordering service and add their mobile number to their online “pizza profile” can also reorder their established Easy Order by texting the phrase “Easy Order.”

Generation Y prefers to shop at Walmart over Target, Costco, Kroger, Whole Foods, and Trader Joe’s, according to Ad Age.

"Millennials now, as a generation, like Walmart the best, more so than Generation X, more so than boomers," Matt Kistler, Walmart’s senior VP-consumer insights and analytics, said.

Walmart is most popular among people under 24, as well as every store but Target among 25- to 34-year-olds, according to InfoScout, a provider of shopper insights with a nationwide panel of more than 170,000 shoppers.

Philadelphia — Except for a momentary spike during the 2014 holiday season, conversion and add-to-cart rates have been dropping steadily year-over-year. However, according to the global Ecommerce Quarterly report from Monetate, personalized, relevant product recommendations help brands avoid this issue.

Seattle — Amazon.com is reportedly expanding the assortment of items eligible for free two-day shipping for members of its Prime paid subscription. According to the Wall Street Journal, Amazon is now listing items shipped directly from third-party seller warehouses for free Prime two-day shipping, without any publicity.

As more brands evolve to a direct-to-consumer model, Unilever is expanding its direct selling to China by launching a flagship store on JD.com.

The Unilever flagship store on JD Worldwide, which is JD.com's cross-border e-commerce platform, will feature products from a range of Unilever’s most popular global brands such as Ponds, Dove and Vaseline. Notably, the flagship store will make available three product lines from Lux's shampoo range, which are currently the best-selling shampoo products in the Japanese market.

Franklin, Tenn. — Retailers are interested in mobile POS (mPOS) technology, but a number of challenges exist to its widespread adoption. According to a new study from IHL Group, “mPOS: Houston, Do We Have A Problem,” 78% of retailers planning to make a new mobile POS decision by mid-2016.

In addition, 66% of enterprise retailers say they want their existing POS software vendor to provide their mPOS solution. However, it takes chain retailers an average of 9.7 months to deploy a mobile POS solution.