Store Systems

Retailers will be excited by the prospect of employees that are never late and don’t need to take breaks or even be paid, but will customers accept them?
 

The store is making a comeback. Even online pure plays are laying down bricks and mortar, setting up “shop-in-shop” stores and large flagships to keep pace in the multichannel world.
 

Asda, the U.K. subsidiary of Walmart, wants customers to have unencumbered access to desired products.
 
On the front end, this has meant creating a click and collect service called toyou. On the back end, Asda enables toyou with a seamless fulfillment infrastructure based on Manhattan Associates technology.
 

Retailers will be excited by the prospect of employees that are never late and don’t need to take breaks or even be paid, but will customers accept them?
 

Despite improved net sales, DSW Inc. saw net earnings decline substantially during the first quarter of fiscal 2017.
 
The footwear retailer reported net income of $30.01 million, down 37% from $47.37 million in the prior year quarter. Growing cost of sales and operating expenses, as well as a pretax expense from the February purchase of online footwear retailer Ebuys Inc., cut into profit even as net sales rose 4% to $681.27 million, from $655.47 million. Ebuys contributed $15.1 million in net sales.
 

A lot of retailers are making it easy for customers to shop in store with their mobile phones, but what about those pesky batteries?
 
Neiman Marcus is addressing the often forgotten Achilles heel of mobile commerce – the frustratingly short life of many smartphone batteries. The luxury chain is expanding a partnership with mobile charging station provider ChargeItSpot with a planned nationwide rollout that will result in 37 mobile phone charging stations installed across 30 locations.

When store managers have timely access to traffic and conversion data, good things happen.
 

As the retail landscape continues to evolve in response to an explosion of creativity and innovation from both new and existing brands, this is an exciting and inspiring time to be in the business.