Omnichannel

Mooreseville, N.C. — Lowe’s has launched Lowe’s Innovation Lab, with a goal of creating new technology to solve common consumer frustrations while working alongside start-ups, universities, specialized professionals and other companies. The first concept to come out of the lab is the Lowe's Holoroom, a home improvement simulator that applies 3D and augmented reality technologies to provide homeowners an intuitive, immersive experience in their dream rooms.

SAN FRANCISCO — Big Data personalization provider WibiData has launched WibiRetail, a new software platform designed for retailers to rapidly deploy algorithmically-driven personalized shopping experiences. WibiRetail provides intent-aware commerce applications that use in-the-moment data to determine whether a consumer is shopping for herself, a family member or a partner.

Amy Heidersbach, who has spent the last four years at eBay overseeing various marketing efforts, including Pay Pal, has joined customer experience management company Needle as SVP, chief marketing officer.

Heidersbach led PayPal’s $12.5 billion enterprise and retail solutions unit while at eBay and also was also on the executive team that founded X.commerce, the online auction house’s ecommerce platform division. Heidersbach brought X.commerce together with ecommerce platform Magento after it was acquired by eBay in 2011.

Schaumburg, Ill. — Motorola Solutions Inc. has released a personal shopping device designed to enable customers to quickly scan items with faster checkouts. The MC18 Personal Shopper is Motorola’s fifth generation personal shopping device and provides shoppers with real-time discount coupons for items they are purchasing and suggestions for complementary merchandise.

Atlanta — Online shoppers want retailers to make it easier to purchase their goods and services, and also want websites and stores to work better together. For now, according to a new survey of 5,800 consumers from UPS and comScore Inc., they also prefer to evaluate and purchase products from their desktops rather than their mobile devices, and when it comes to shipping and returns, "free" is a driving factor to complete the sale.
 

Risk averse retailers were quick to shun Paula Deen after she displayed racial insensitivities last year, but now she is back with a new approach that appeals directly to fans of her brand.

Paula Deen Ventures plans to create an interactive digital experience called the Paula Deen Network that allows viewers to engage and access Deen and her Southern home cooking on a variety of digital platforms. The network will be a paid subscription model and is scheduled to launch this September.

Chicago — BrightTag, a provider of real-time, cross-channel marketing technologies, has changed its name to Signal to reflect its focus on helping marketers strengthen the signals between brands and customers. The company also unveiled its Open Data Platform, a patented suite of products designed to help brands make their data and marketing technologies work better together to drive increased engagement, loyalty and conversions.

Chicago — Retail category planning solutions provider Galleria has entered a partnership with Displaydata, a provider of digital display solutions.

The partnership is intended to create a solution that will reduce operational costs while still enabling the delivery of a customer-centric in-store experience, by connecting electronic shelf label (ESL) technology from Displaydata with category management solutions from Galleria.