Omnichannel

Amazon has climbed to the top of the social shopping ranks, thanks in part to the introduction of #AmazonCart and #AmazonBasket.

When the International Council of Shopping Centers opens the doors of the Las Vegas Convention Center on May 17 to retailers and shopping center attendees from around the globe, it will unveil a lineup of newly built, underway and redeveloped properties ripe for deal-making.

Leasing interest at RECon 2015 is expected to be high, this despite naysayers who have predicted the demise of the shopping mall. Not likely, say those in the know.

New York -- Outdoor apparel, equipment and footwear retailer The North Face has collaborated with Jaunt, which provides virtual reality (VF) hardware and software, on an immersive VR in-store experience designed to boost customers’ connection to the outdoors.

The attraction arrived in select North Face locations beginning in March in Chicago, and is now being rolled out to the company’s store in Manhattan. It transports viewers to Yosemite National Park and Moab, Utah, alongside North Face global athletes Cedar Wright and Sam Elias.

Whole Foods Market and Instacart are partnering to make it more convenient to show Mom how much you love her this Mother’s Day.

London - Online retailing pioneer Amazon Inc. has climbed to the top of the retail social media ranks, thanks in part to the introduction of #AmazonBasket. According to the latest Retail Social Media Benchmark results from eDigitalResearch, since the introduction of the new social media shopping functionality, Amazon has added 700,000 new followers to its U.K. Twitter account in the past six months, bumping them up to second overall, just behind leaders Topshop.

By Mihir Kittur, co-founder and chief innovation officer, Ugam

2015 is seeing enormous growth in the number of product SKUs listed online, and e-commerce and content managers will be tasked with the rapid onboarding of those SKUs. However, adding SKUs alone won’t be enough; they also need to have the right assortment and the right price and deliver a better shopper experience.

Lowe's Innovation Labs has come up with a way to allow shoppers to customize every knob, door and handle in their home. 

Brick-and-mortar stores are in transition from being viewed as a relic of the 20th century to being understood as the linchpin of 21st century omnichannel retailing.