TOP STORIES
How Zappos Kept Shoppers Engaged During The Holiday Season
Zappos invests significant time and money in developing new tools and tactics that will surprise and delight customers. Within its internal innovation lab — aptly named Zappos Labs — the online retailer has a dedicated team of employees who focus on solving customers’ pain points, and creating compelling and customized experiences across all channels.
Out of a series of tests and brainstorming sessions, Zappos Labs has established a variety of innovative tools to make customers’ lives easier. For example, Ask Zappos allows customers to snap photos of items they see on the street and text, email or Instagram them to team members. A representative will then find the item and send a link to the customer to buy online. And new capabilities implemented in the Zappos mobile app allow consumers to shop and favorite items across different devices, as well as store their payment information in a secure environment.
While the above tools undoubtedly help make shopping more seamless and hassle-free, it is Glance that has helped surprise, delight and inspire consumers at the point of decision-making. Glance is an online shopping tool powered by Zappos stylists who pull the hottest items on the site and curate them in to compelling, easy-to-digest collections. Read more...
Epicor Completes ShopVisible Acquisition
Epicor Software Corporation has completed its acquisition retail order management and digital commerce solution provider ShopVisible. With the transaction, Epicor has combined its business software suite with cloud-based e-Commerce and order management software from ShopVisible. Platforms such as ShopVisible Digital Commerce and ShopVisible Order Management will now be part of the Epicor Retail suite of solutions. The new combined company will be displayed at the National Retail Federation’s Annual Convention and EXPO in New York City on Jan. 11-14, 2015.
“The acquisition of ShopVisible provides key capabilities supporting Epicor’s vision of a converged commerce platform to serve today’s connected shoppers,” said Noel Goggin, EVP and General Manager of Epicor Retail. “We now can offer retailers all the elements they need for omnichannel retailing through real-time interaction among our POS, mobile POS, Enterprise Selling, e-Commerce, Mobile Commerce, CRM, Sales Audit Merchandising, and Warehouse Management solutions.”
Sean Cook, CEO of ShopVisible, and Josh Lloyd, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer at ShopVisible, will join the Epicor Retail team to lead cloud-based order management and digital commerce initiatives.
With the purchase, Epicor will expand its user base to include retailers and manufacturers such as 3M, Atwoods, Tempur-Pedic and Plow & Hearth.
McDonald’s Implements Beacons To Boost Sales And Customer Satisfaction
McDonald's franchises in Columbus, Ga. have rolled out beacon technology fromPiper in an effort to improve the customer dining experience. With the technology, McDonald's can deliver coupons, offers, promotions, information on employment opportunities and customer surveys to consumers' smartphones as soon as they enter a restaurant.
Customers who install the Piper app are prompted to save an Apple Passbook offer to their device. The offer also is visible and can be redeemed through the Piper Android app. Through the platform, customers can customize their experiences based on the types of messages they want to receive.
During the initial four-week launch, which began in October 2014, participating stores saw more than 18,000 offer redemptions for promotions involving the McChicken sandwich and 10-piece Chicken McNuggets. The promotions improved McChicken sandwich sales by 8% and Chicken McNuggets sales by 7.5% versus the previous month.
The pilot program was rolled out in 17 McDonald's franchises in and around Columbus, Ga., according to Pezold. Due to the pilot's success, Piper is working on installing beacons in 263 McDonald's franchises across Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. Read more...
INSIGHTS
Global Powers of Retailing 2015- Embracing Innovation
The 18th annual Global Powers of Retailing identifies the 250 largest retailers around the world based on publicly available data for fiscal 2013 (encompassing companies' fiscal years ended through June 2014), and analyzes their performance based on geographic region, product sector, e-commerce activity, and other factors. It also provides a look at the world's 50 biggest e-retailers.
Global Powers of Retailing 2015: Embracing Innovation is much more than a list, however. It considers strategies retailers are taking to cope with disruptive change in the industry. Ira Kalish, Deloitte's Chief Global Economist, provides an overview of the global economy and how it will impact the retail sector. There is also a section devoted to the "Q Ratio," which is a way of measuring non-tangible business assets such as brand equity and customer loyalty.
Among the key insights included in the report:
- Five trends are reshaping retail: travel retailing, mobile retailing, faster retailing, experience retailing and innovative retailing.
- Important economic issues having a global impact on the retailing industry include shifts in U.S. monetary policy, energy production in the U.S., the crisis in Ukraine, the slowdown in Chinese investment, shifting demographics, and the influence of technology and the internet.
- Retailers of food and other fast-moving consumer goods continue to dominate the Top 250 in number and size of companies.
- International expansion remains an important growth strategy for many retailers.
- Despite rapid growth in the e-commerce arena, only two pure-play e-retailers were large enough to rank among the Top 250.
- U.S.-based retailers account for a disproportionate share of those that have generated considerable value through their non-tangible assets; Japanese retailers, on the other hand, account for a disproportionate share of those that do not.
What Are The Greatest Challenges Facing Retailers In 2015?
Is 2015 the year for mobile payment saturation? Are retailers really improving the customer experience? What can we expect from advanced personalization initiatives? A total of 15 retail industry experts — including leading industry analysts, consultants and researchers — have shared their expertise and predictions for 2015 and beyond. Find this out here
Retail Outlook Guide 2015 by Retail Experts
Thank You and Happy Retailing!!
You can also follow me at https://twitter.com/AmitDas_2030
#retailnomics
Thank You and Happy Retailing!!
You can also follow me at https://twitter.com/AmitDas_2030
#retailnomics
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