Store Systems

RETAIL NOTES: Kleinfeld Hudson’s Bay, a glamorous bridal shop on the top floor of the Hudson’s Bay’s flagship and headquarters building in Toronto, took the big prize — Store of the Year — in the Association for Retail Environments 2015 Design Awards. The annual awards recognize the best in retail design, store fixtures and visual presentation. Designed in house by HBC Store Planning, the 14,000-sq.-ft.

Tom Lichford, VP retail technologies, NRF, recommends retailers seeking to achieve compliance with upcoming October 2015 EMV mandate take the following five steps:

1. CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE: “No matter what, start with customer experience,” advised Litchford. Retailers need to determine such factors as whether they will use self-service or traditional POS, customer prompts and screen displays, and how checkout speed will be impacted.

Bi-Lo Holdings wants to tap into its shoppers’ digital lifestyles with a 360-degree mobile app and website experience that delivers personalized coupons based customer shopping habits.

Front-end omnichannel success relies on back-end fulfillment

The front-end promise of omnichannel retail cannot be delivered without investment in back-end technology and processes that allow fulfillment of orders across multiple channels. Retailers must eliminate internal silos and obtain real-time awareness of their full inventory.

Omnichannel fulfillment is a difficult, but not impossible, task.

Data drives efficient retail real estate decision-making

Making the right decisions with the right data is obviously something retailers strive to do in all areas of their business. However, when it comes to real estate, “getting it right” is even more critical.

The newest products and services from suppliers in store planning and design, construction and facility management were on display in the SPECS 2015 Solutions Center.

The exhibit floor provided the retailers and other specifiers at the show with a wide range of solutions, from lighting, signage and flooring options to maintenance and HVAC providers to energy management and construction services.

Ann Arbor, Mich. - Despite economic indicators that show the recession is over, customers are slightly less satisfied in 2015 than they were the prior year. According to CFI Group's Retail Satisfaction Barometer 2015, the RSB score for 2015 is 79 on a 0-100 scale (with 100 being the highest possible score), a one-point drop from 2014.

New York – While most observers agree there will not be widespread adoption of technology to accept payments from EMV-compliant payment cards in the U.S. by the October 2015 fraud liability shift deadline, Forrester Research is less optimistic than most. In a research note, Forrester said retailer concerns about the ROI of spending on chip and PIN technology, as well the development of new secure payment methods, will delay widespread adoption of hardware and software needed to accept chip and PIN payment in the U.S., until 2020.