From The Editor's Desk
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Fail Fast, Fail Cheap
4/30/2015
There are three indisputable facts about the Retail industry.
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The Age Of The Self-Service Customer Experience
4/23/2015
A few recent surveys conducted by Forrester collectively reveal just how important digital self-service tools are for retailers seeking to offer customer service excellence. They also reveal the demise of in-store retail customer service.
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On-Call Shifts: Setting Clear Expectations And Offering Meaningful Incentives
4/15/2015
Several news sources reported recently that New York’s Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman, is investigating 13 major retailers, including GAP, J Crew, Sears, and Target on their scheduling practices for their hourly workers.
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The Three I’s Of A Healthy LP/IT Relationship
4/8/2015
Over the years, we’ve written extensively about the value of a collaborative relationship between retail loss prevention and information technology professionals. Once upon a time, this relationship was little more than a necessary and often begrudging one.
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Apple To Customers: Stay Out Of Stores On Launch Day?
4/7/2015
A “leaked” memo from Apple Retail Chief Angela Ahrendts to Apple store associates made the rounds this week, inciting all sorts of speculation among retail, tech, and business analysts. The memo, first reported by Business Insider on April 7, included this little snippet from Ahrendts, which sent press and pundits into a tizzy.
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Vanilla Is The New Black
4/1/2015
Oracle Industry Connect 2015 wrapped recently, and best-of-breed retailers and brands including Nordstrom, ULTA Beauty, Adidas, Lilly Pulitzer, Gap, Charming Charlie, and more presented their paths to omni-channel, or as Mike Webster, senior VP and GM retail and hospitality, put it “evolved omni-channel, as it blends digital and physical, because ‘it’s all retailing.’”
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Facebook Continues Its Full-Court Press Into Retail
3/26/2015
The news coming out of Facebook’s F8 Developer’s Conference last week could have big implications for retailers. The company made some bold announcements regarding its Messenger Platform—including integration with e-commerce sites to facilitate customer service, order verification and receipts, order modification, shipping status, and returns.
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Retail Personalization: Don’t Be Creepy
3/18/2015
Marketers continue to grapple with scaling personalization by attempting to deliver a customized customer experience without being, well, creepy. The struggle is real. Accenture’s recent Personalization Survey based on a Web outreach to 1,000 U.S. consumers shows that nearly 60% of consumers want real-time promotions and offers, but only 20% percent want retailers to know their current location.
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Cyber Security: Assessing The Threat
3/16/2015
Alarmism sells. It’s a fact that’s no lost on cyber security software vendors. In recent years, dramatic headlines have done little to calm the nerves of retail LP and risk mitigation professionals tasked with protecting their ever-proliferating store networks. But securing those networks comes at a cost, and in the face of the fear mongering designed to spur security sales, it’s important to maintain calm and assess the reality of the threat of cyber attack in your specific business.
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Google Gets Physical, Target Gets Digital
3/12/2015
Recent initiatives by two distinctly different powerhouse brands couldn’t possibly illustrate the any-channel imperative more clearly.