Gone are the days of in-store communications with a static message that is replaced seasonally or as a result of a new advertising campaign! By integrating proximity marketing with digital signs, messages can be matched to consumers’ interests, shopping trends, or demographics. Shoppers with shared characteristics tend to shop at certain times. Digital signage, informed [...]
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Continuing the Disney Store tradition of razzle-dazzle, storytelling, and entertainment, the new “immersive” concept announced at the National Retail Federation conference in New York on January 11 is a fusion of technology, innovative store design, and 21st-century customer service. Customer service with an iPod touch New retail-sales technology designed by Oracle incorporates the iPod touch [...]
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Whole Foods rocked the foodservice world in 2005 when it opened a new flagship store in Austin, Texas with six different in-store eating concepts under one roof. Today, the store’s restaurants offer chicken fried tofu, press-to-order panini and wheatberry quinoa Waldorf salad. The Austin Whole Foods’ wine department now sells wine for drinking either in [...]
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Smartphone apps are in vogue this holiday season, and customers are joining the trend to do shopping with their fingers. Mobklix, the iPhone mobile analytics company, reports that shopping app usage increased dramatically during Black Friday and Cyber Monday this year compared to same period in 2009: iPhone shopping app impressions grew by 249% in [...]
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Posted in Consumer Trends, Retail Strategy on Oct 13th, 2010
Whatever marketers call Generation Y, today’s young people born between 1982 and 1997, they have massive spending power. These “Echo Boomers” or “Millennials” (age group13-28) represent an estimated consumer market of $211 billion compared to Gen X’s $125 billion, and are 82 million strong. Generational experiences If we hope to understand the needs, desires, and [...]
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Pop-up retailing is not just for taking advantage of opportunities to offer seasonal merchandise by opening Halloween and Christmas shops in vacant real estate. Facing the pressures of the current economic downturn, retailers have found that temporary stores are a way of avoiding the multi-year lease requirements and expensive construction build-out costs involved in new [...]
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Downloading and usage of cell phone apps is on the rise worldwide. Recent surveys have estimated the mobile apps market to increase from the current $2.2 billion to $17.5 billion over the next three years. To take advantage of all of the capabilities of downloadable apps, users must have a smartphone (Blackberry, iPhone, Android, etc.), [...]
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Posted in Innovation on Aug 31st, 2010
Mainstream retailers IKEA, JC Penney, and Kmart are joining creatively savvy Zappos and Uniqlo in jumping on the social media bandwagon. Over the past decades, the retail industry has been quick to innovate when it comes to customer engagement and retention. In the 80’s television home shopping revolutionized retail distribution; in the 90’s creation of [...]
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