Marketing

Wal-Mart is turning up the pressure to keep its shelves adequately stocked by proposing to tie executive compensation to the issue — and has asked an outside auditor to alert workers which items to focus on by plastering U.S. stores with neon green dots. Earlier this year, Bloomberg News reported that Wal-Mart had trouble keeping its stores stocked as it cut back on workers per store. That has cost sales and driven away frustrated shoppers.

A.T. Kearney released the 2013 Achieving Excellence in Retail Operations (AERO) Study, a research project that looks at how companies approach store operations and provides retail executives with tools to better adapt to the fast-changing, technology-driven market. The study revealed that there are many underutilized sources of customer data. While leading retailers were gaining from the use of customer data sources, less than half of the retailers in the study collected social network data from third party domains, and just 8 percent thought it made an important contribution to generating insights.

One of the universal truths I see is a lack of understanding by many marketers, from newbie to experienced, of what their website is really for. I know, I know, marketers always say the right thing: It's about conversion. When I look at their website and ask them what their site conversion rate is, I hear them proudly state, "I convert 2 percent, look how good I'm doing!" (And of course some marketers don't even know what their site conversion rate is.)

Despite being far more tech-savvy than previous generations, Generation Y, the 80 million strong cohort of Americans between the ages of 18 and 35, hasn't forsaken shopping in stores for online purchasing — as long as retailers keep their offerings "fresh" and interesting, says a new report from the Urban Land Institute (ULI).

After days of silence during which long-held resentment toward Abercrombie & Fitch began to boil over, Chief Executive Michael S. Jeffries tried to stem a backlash against the teen-focused retailer. Jeffries, in a statement Thursday, discussed criticism that the company lacks women's XL and XXL sizes in favor of catering toward young, good-looking customers.

Etsy has resumed testing personalized marketing emails designed to entice shoppers back to the marketplace after a bug had caused a breach in some sellers' privacy last month.

This is the second installment of a two-part series about the integrated use of consumer package goods (CPG), transactional and retail store competitive, growth, multichannel and customer segmentation strategies. This post will focus on multichannel and customer segmentation strategies.

Zabar's, the world-renowned New York-based gourmet specialty food retailer, has replaced its homegrown subscription e-commerce program with a new autoship program called Z-Peat. Z-Peat offers customers the ability to subscribe to their favorite and/or frequently purchased Zabar’s items, everything from coffee and teas to babka, bagels and rugelach. Products are automatically shipped to customers who register online at zabars.com for the replenishment program.

Working hard to support the family day in and day out, mom will be more than recognized for her devotion this Mother's Day. According to the National Retail Federation's Mother's Day spending survey conducted by BIGinsight, consumers will spend an average of $168.94 on mom, up 11 percent from last year's $152.52. Total spending is expected to reach $20.7 billion.

"It's no secret," begins a new J.C. Penney television ad, to a soft piano soundtrack and nostalgic images of old storefronts. "Recently, J.C. Penney changed." That's something of an understatement. In April, the clothing retailer booted CEO Ron Johnson, wooed from Apple with much fanfare, after he oversaw a $4 billion loss in revenue in his brief tenure. As former CEO Mike Ullman goes about stemming the bleeding, J.C. Penney is going on the offensive, apologizing to shoppers alienated by Johnson's controversial store revamps.