Omnichannel

ST. LOUIS — Aisle411, a mobile retail navigation service that helps shoppers locate products down to the shelf location, on Tuesday announced its service now is live in more than 1,000 stores with the addition of three markets — Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Diego.

Other markets identified for expansion included Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Houston, Minneapolis, New York, Phoenix, Sacramento, Calif., Seattle and Washington, D.C.

By Akhilesh Srivastava, [email protected]
According to NRF Retail Horizons Benchmark Report, two key initiatives to keep retailers competitive in 2010 were optimization and streamlining of their internal operations to reduce operating costs and improving their customer centricity to win the share of wallet.

Wells Fargo retail analyst Matt Nemer put several leading retailers to the test this week with an innovative approach to research. According to Barron’s, he went on a $5,000 shopping spree on the websites of some of the largest Internet-only and traditional retailers. He said Amazon.com offered the best shopping experience, and he rated the retailer at outperform. Walmart.com was said to have higher prices than Amazon’s, but had strong customer service and didn’t showed up as well in searches.

New York City -- Information Builders, a provider of business intelligence solutions, announced that Helzberg Diamonds has standardized on the WebFocus BI platform to provide advanced analysis and reporting capabilities to managers at 230 stores across the United States.

Department stores and shopping centers malls are gaining market share for the first time in three decades, according to consultants Customer Growth Partners, and this month most will report their best annual earnings in years -- if not ever.

“Department stores from Macy’s to Nordstrom, and mall operators from Macerich to Simon, have used the recession not just to cut costs, but to reinvent themselves,” said Craig Johnson, president, Customer Growth Partners, a consulting and research firm serving retail and other consumer industries.

SANTA MONICA, Calif., VANCOUVER, British Columbia and PARIS --Lionsgate, Studiocanal and Miramax announced that they have entered into a worldwide home entertainment distribution deal. Under the long-term deal, Lionsgate and Studiocanal will distribute more than 550 titles from the Miramax film library via DVD, Blu-ray, EST and Internet Video On Demand (VOD), in addition to cable VOD internationally, the companies reported.

Word out of Minneapolis this week courtesy of a Bloomberg story is that Best Buy plans to emulate Walmart’s pricing model in order to confront the issue of price transparency and simplify its operations. Smartphone wielding shoppers armed with price comparison apps have quickly changed how consumers shop and make purchases of highly considered items, such as those which dominate the product mix at Best Buy or in Walmart’s electronics department.