Omnichannel

Shoppers all across the country who long for a taste of salsa from San Antonio or tortilla chips from Dallas will love the latest news from Texas-based grocery chain H-E-B.

Plug and Play brings together retailers and start-ups that offer specific technology and expertise that can relieve merchants’ pain points. Chain Store Age offers a Q&A with the head of one of those start-ups, Wibe Wagemans, president of Palo Alto, California-based IndoorAtlas.

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Seamless commerce is constantly evolving, and SAP is attempting to stay at the front of the curve with its new SAP Jam Communities with Commerce solution. The cloud-based customer engagement tool is natively built on the SAP Jam enterprise social collaboration platform, and also integrates with the SAP hybris commerce management platform.

At a recent event in Boston, SAP explained how the new solution enables retailers to build community pages that support and drive seamless commerce. Here are three of the most innovative community page features.

Target Corp. is bringing its smaller-sized, urban format to one of lower Manhattan’s trendiest — and wealthiest — neighborhoods.

The retailer will open an approximately 45,000-sq.-ft. store on Greenwich Street in Tribeca, near Battery Park, a fast-growing and affluent residential area, and the Financial District.

The two-level store is scheduled to open in October 2016. It is located in a 14-story, 625,000-sq.-ft. mixed-use building, whose landlord is Jack Resnick & Sons.

Consumers find it easy to use social media for brand engagement, but that doesn’t mean they are using it.

According to the new “Global Brand Simplicity Index” from New York-based branding firm Siegel+Gale, 65% of consumers say social media is a simple platform for learning about brands, products and services via social media. Yet only 32% use social media for this purpose.

Similarly, 45% of consumers find social media simple for engaging customer service, but only 11% use social media for customer service engagement.

Amazon.com has been busy expanding its same-day Prime delivery options across the U.S., and now it is hopping the pond.

Amazon U.K. has launched Amazon Pantry, a nationwide service for Prime members. Amazon Pantry offers more than 4,000 everyday grocery items, including food and drink, household supplies, baby and child care, pet, and health and beauty products.

Lowe's has appointed an executive of the health insurance industry to its board of directors.

The retailer said that its board of directors has appointed Bertram L. Scott, 65, to the board, effective immediately. The announcement brings Lowe's board of directors to 12 members, 11 of whom are independent.