Omnichannel

Shoemaker Steve Madden is partnering with omnichannel personalization company Certona to tailor shoppers’ experiences online.

“We are proud to add Steve Madden to our roster of fashion clients,” Certona CEO Meyar Sheik said. “Certona will enable Steve Madden to best connect and engage with their loyal community while delivering the most personalized customer experiences across their touchpoints.”

New York -- Spanish apparel giant Inditex, plans to have radio frequency identification technology in place in its nearly 2,000 Zara stores around the globe by 2016. The technology has already been installed at all of Zara's distribution centers and at more than 700 Zara stores.

Amazon found another way to endear itself to customers with a new service called Kindle Unlimited that provides access to 600,000 books for a flat monthly fee.

San Francisco - PBteen opens its first Arizona-based PBteen store at Kierland Commons in Scottsdale, Arizona on July 18. It will serve as a combined location with Pottery Barn Kids, and this will be the 18th PBteen location in the U.S.

VF Corp., the company behind popular brands such as The North Face, Timberland and Wrangler, relied on the strength of its 1,300 unit retail operation to drive sales during the second quarter.

New York -- Greg Buzek, president of IHL, which tracks mobile spending and forecasts for the retail and hospitality markets, offers analysis on the recently announced IBM-Apple partnership:
 
If IBM and Apple for retail were people on Facebook right now, the relationship status would say “It’s complicated."

Naperville, Ill. – Arba Retail Systems has released a new mobile POS solution. Built specifically for Microsoft Surface tablet series, this retail management software is compatible with the latest Microsoft Surface Pro 3 Tablet.

The retail version is designed for both single unit and chain stores. The software is built on the latest Microsoft technologies — .NET and MS SQL Server, and compatible with the Windows 8 OS.

Paying online got easier for Visa cardholders this week thanks to its launch of Visa Checkout. The service will allow users to register their card and then complete their purchases by entering their Checkout username and password.