Omnichannel

Miami -- Online menswear retailer Combatant Gentlemen has launched a video chat solution on their website that allows customers to shop alongside a personal stylist.  

Using a real-time communication tool from video-chat based startup LiveNinja, online Combatant Gentlemen shoppers can chat with a knowledgeable stylist for advice and style recommendations directly on Combatgent.com.

San Francisco - Westfield San Francisco Centre has enlisted RetailNext Inc., a provider of retail analytics for brick-and-mortar stores, to provide in-store retail analytics technologies and services for Bespoke, its new retail-technology hub. Bespoke is made up of tech demonstration, coworking and event spaces.

By David Trice, Co-Founder and CEO, Engage

GameStop continued to reap rewards from its omnichannel strategy in the first quarter, as the retailer reported an impressive increase in same store sales.

On Thursday, Google introduced Android Pay, which will power in-app and tap-to-pay purchases on mobile devices. Here are some comments from Pat Dermody, president of Retale, a location-based mobile platform connecting shoppers with their favorite local retailers, on the new feature:

By Jeff Trachsel

Showrooming has plagued brick-and-mortar retailers for years, with e-commerce quickly chipping away at in-store sales. Recently however, experts report the rising trend is actually the reverse - shoppers are now exploring options online before buying in-store. According to a 2014 report from BI Intelligence, reverse showrooming, or webrooming, is actually more common among U.S. consumers, with 69% of consumers researching online before transacting in-store.

The CEO of Sportsman's Warehouse Holdings Inc. blamed traffic problems and lower prices of firearms for the company’s drop in same store sales in the first quarter.

Net sales increased by 9.1% to $144.5 million from $132.4 million in the first quarter ended May 2. Same store sales decreased by 0.7%.

We live in interesting times when it comes to all the ways we can pay and complete purchases, times when you can now order food for delivery without ever leaving your search engine. More convenient and secure ways of making payments are advancing on a number of interesting fronts, including computer chip enabled EMV credit and debit cards that are soon to replace magnetic stripe cards in the United States, and mobile phone-based digital wallets like Apple Pay and CurrentC (not to mention the digital currency bitcoin, which admittedly we’re pulling for).