News

Lessons Learned from Back-to-School Shopping: Three Trends Driving Peak Season Strategies
By Leela Rao-Kataria, GT Nexus When most people are asked what the busiest holiday for retailers’ is they immediately cite the traditional holiday season. But most consumers don’t realize back-to-school shopping is the second biggest shopping season in the United States. And unlike the winter holidays, back-to-school has an additional challenge for retailers: it’s the longest running holiday season, extending over three months.
Bilingual “virtual” shopping consultants deployed at Miami International Airport
Bay Shore, N.Y. -- MIA Concessions has deployed advanged digital signage in Miami International Airport’s (MIA)) South Terminal in the form of bilingual digital passenger assistants. The technology, from Tensator, provides passengers with high-tech virtual shopping consultants and also serves as an advertising vehicle for shops and restaurants to reach high multi-lingual air travelers to Miami.

Amazon to open pop-ups in San Francisco, Sacramento

Seattle –- Amazon.com will open a holiday pop-up store at San Francisco Westfield Centre, in San Francisco, on Wednesday, Oct. 22, according to the San Francisco Business Journal.
IBISWorld: Halloween sales to reach $7.29 billion

New York -- Total Halloween sales are expected to grow 3% to total $7.29 billion in 2014, due to improving economic conditions and employment levels. According to a new study from market research firm IBISWorld Inc., costume sales are expected to rise 6% to $2.76 billion, spurred by more theme parties and social media photo sharing.
Calvin Klein deploys digital denim fit guides at Macy’s

New York -- Calvin Klein has deployed an interactive shopping experience at Macy's Herald Square store in New York City, soon to be rolling out at 18 other Macy's locations nationwide this year. Using dynamic marketing technologies from Creative Realities, Calvin Klein is employing interactive touch display and sales assistance applications developed by Creative Realities to support shoppers as they navigate the denim category.
Report: Wal-Mart pilots digital movie service

Bentonville, Ark. –- Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is reportedly piloting a service called InstaWatch that lets customers obtain digital access to movies they buy in stores or on the Wal-Mart site.
Report: Bank of America says Alibaba tops in e-commerce

Charlotte, N.C. –- Bank of America has reportedly released a report saying that Chinese e-commerce platform Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is the leader in global e-commerce, followed by Amazon.com. According to Benzinga.com, Alibaba currently holds 31% of global e-commerce market share and should grow to capture 33% of global e-commerce market share in 2015.
HSN, TiVo launch Shop By Remote

St. Petersburg, Fla. –- HSN Inc. is partnering with television services provider TiVo to launch Shop By Remote, HSN's interactive shopping experience. With a click of a button TiVo users can now shop for thousands of products featured on HSN shows. Located within the Apps & Games menu on TiVo Central, users can visit the HSN app to view and purchase recently featured items or browse HSN's catalogue of more than 40,000 products.
Amazon takes aim at retailers' weaknesses

In what promises to be the most digital holiday season ever, Amazon has issued an appeal to shoppers who want to avoid busy parking lots, crowded stores and long checkout lines.

Amazon’s appeal to shoppers was made in conjunction with the release of the online retailers 2014 Holiday Toy List and compounds traditional retailers’ already challenging effort to generate traffic to stores during the holiday season.
Whole Foods takes tiered approach to responsibility

Whole Foods Market is helping its shoppers make a choice between good, better and best when it comes to the level of growing practices they want to support when purchasing fruits, vegetables and flowers.
Food Lion keeps hunger away with millions of apples a day

Food Lion partnered with its customers and Feeding America to help provide 1.5 million meals to families in need.

Thanks to a program that began on September 17, each time a customer purchased the specially-marked apples Food Lion helped provide five meals to local food banks.
Amazon’s video app targets Dropbox and Google Drive

Amazon Cloud Drive users now have access to their personal videos and photos from connected devices on the Amazon Instant Video app.

The feature is now available on PlayStation 3 and 4 along with select LG and Samsung smart TVs across the U.S., U.K. and Germany.