Omnichannel

Burnaby, Canada -- Canada’s Future Shop will soon be a thing of the past. Best Buy announced it is consolidating its Future Shop division, and the chain’s namesake stores and Future Shop stores will all operate under the Best Buy nameplate. As part of the consolidation, 66 Future Shop stores will be closed, effective March 30. Also, 65 Future Shop locations will be shuttered for one week to transition to Best Buy.

Bolingbrook, Ill. - For fast-growing retailer Ulta Beauty, having an omnichannel presence does not just mean selling products across multiple touch-points. As Ulta Beauty executives explained during a presentation at the recent Oracle Industry Connect 2015 conference, the retailer uses an Oracle Retail technology platform to support a range of omnichannel experiences that engage customers at a highly personal level.

Last week, Oracle hosted its second annual Oracle Industry Connect conference in Washington, D.C. This seat of world power was an appropriate setting for a two-day summit explaining how retailers can use technology to obtain better control of every aspect of their enterprises.

Here are three key lessons attendees gleaned from Oracle Industry Connect:

Customers are the Best Salespeople

The North Face’s latest unique marketing campaign is inviting customers to the mountains for a workout without ever leaving the store.

The outdoors and fitness apparel company's latest promotion will bring Mountain Athletics workouts to five cities across the country, and customers are invited to sign up and engage in-store and online via a variety of digital marketing offerings.

Beginning March 31, the North Face will host twice-weekly free strength and conditioning workouts in Washington, D.C., New York, San Francisco, Chicago and Boston.

Seattle – Amazon.com is launching Amazon Home Services, a new marketplace for on-demand professional services that puts it in competition with online service platforms such as Craigslist. In less than 60 seconds, customers can browse, purchase and schedule hundreds of professional services directly on Amazon.com.

Cambridge, Mass. – Mobile traffic during the 2014 holiday season peaked on Thanksgiving (50% of online traffic) and hit a low point on Cyber Monday (30% of online traffic). According to the 2014 Online Holiday Shopping Trends and Traffic report from e-commerce solutions provider Akamai Technologies, Cyber Monday still proved to be the most popular shopping day of the season, with overall retail traffic peaking at almost 13 million page views per minute (V/PM).

Home Depot had it first, but now MakerBot is coming to an even wider mass-market arena as the 3D printer rolls out at more than 300 Sam's Club locations in the United States.

Retailers can measure every aspect of shoppers’ behavior on their Web sites and now an agreement between Nielsen and RetailNext means some of the same insights can be obtained from the physical world.