Data & Analytics

ShopKeep POS has launched a handheld point of sale device that will use Griffin Olli hardware with the ShopKeep POS app. Called ShopKeep Mobile, it is designed for the iPod touch and features an encrypted credit card swiper and high-speed laser barcode scanner to ring up sales right from the showroom floor.

ShopKeep Mobile also comes with all the functionality of the ShopKeep POS app, including: a full suite of reports, inventory management, employee timekeeping, customer database, email receipts, and support for ticket and receipt printers.

As always, the NRF Conference & Exposition went by in a blur, but looking back on three jam-packed days of industry insight and networking, a few trends kept coming up again and again. Seamless retail, full mobilization of customers and employees, and item-level RFID tagging stood out as topics of interest among exhibitors and attendees. Following are a few thoughts about each of these trends that will help shape the direction of retail in the year ahead.

Seamless Retailing – Moving Beyond Omni-channel

By Netta Kelvis, head of marketing, Custora

[Editor’s Note: Custora has released its Holiday 2013 E-Commerce Recap, which is based on the company’s real-time dashboard aggregating data from over 100 U.S. retailers. Here's a blog post by Custora’s head on marketing summarizing the recap's highlights.]  

New York -- Mexico's Grupo Gigante expects to raise up to 4.954 billion pesos ($374.14 million) in its initial public offering of Office Depot de Mexico shares, Reuters reported.

The company plans to sell up to 291 million shares, local filings revealed.

The listing is provisionally set to price on Feb. 5, the report said.

In June, Grupo Gigante, acquired the 50% stake in the office supplies chain that it did not already own.
 

Amazon has reportedly obtained a patent for “anticipatory shipping,” or a logistics technique using customer behavior and history to prepare items for shipping before they are actually ordered. According to the Wall Street Journal, Amazon received the patent in December 2013.

By Rosie Poultney, 89 Degrees

As businesses try to figure out how to best use all the extra information flooding in from the omni-channel world, segmentation is a hotter topic than ever. Looking back at our conversations with clients in 2013 on the best segmentation approaches to help build their businesses, some key themes stand out. Here are those five key points, each of which will continue to be important in 2014 and for many years to come:

1. One is Never Enough

Walnut Creek, Calif. – Retailers are most likely to use data for planning, but a majority of retailers do not have a long-term enterprise business intelligence (BI) strategy in place that meets their needs. According to a new study from RSR Research, “Retail Analytics Moves to the Frontline,” 57% of retailers think planning and executing more effectively is a top use of data, followed by managing customer relationships (47%) and reporting results of business activities (44%).

Matrix, a professional hair care and hair color company that is a subsidiary of L'Oréal USA, is aiming to transform the professional hair styling experience with a new program that features Google Glass.