Marketing

Traditionally, on-site chat widgets were used to target two ends of the e-commerce funnel: web visitors with general questions, and purchasers with customer service needs. But with the turn of 2018, what was once mainly just “hype” regarding artificial intelligence, chatbots, and their potential has now turned into an evergreen solution for marketers. Chat boasts…

Artificial intelligence (AI) was chosen as the emerging technology most likely to have the biggest impact on the retail industry in 2019, according to Total Retail's 2018-2019 Retail Technology Report. Retailers and brands are investigating ways to leverage the power of AI across their organizations, from marketing to logistics to customer service, and more. Workwear…

Online apparel is an extremely lucrative category. Experts predict that the worldwide e-commerce segment of fashion and apparel will grow from $408 billion in 2017 to more than $706 billion by 2022. As you might expect, with opportunity comes competition. According to one study, 26 percent of the top 1,000 e-commerce sites are dedicated apparel…

The North Face said this week that it will close its global headquarters and its 113 stores in the U.S. and Canada on Earth Day, April 22. The action is part of a campaign to make Earth Day an officially recognized holiday. The VF Corp.-owned brand said closing its doors on Earth Day will provide its employees ample opportunity…

The e-commerce industry will be responsible for about $3.45 trillion in sales this year, and is only continuing to grow. It’s not surprising that business-to-consumer (B-to-C) e-commerce is a huge part of this growth, with the global B-to-C e-commerce market expected to reach over $7.7 billion by 2025. For brands that want to create meaningful…

Many online retailers invest significant resources in email marketing to drive new and existing customers to their sites. Of course, too many emails can cause email fatigue, tuning customers out and weakening brands. There are certainly other ways to drive traffic, such as paid search and digital advertising, but these approaches come with a price.…

Last month, Google changed its sitelink extensions policy, officially allowing brands to link product ads to select store pages they don’t own, starting with Amazon.com and Best Buy. This news represents another milestone in the transformation of e-commerce; another puzzle piece clicking into place for brands building a holistic, multichannel digital strategy. With this sanction,…

A question we hear frequently from clients is: “How do I become a digital Genius?” In our research, Genius brands represent the leaders in digital media, e-commerce, product innovation, and organizational structure. For the majority of brands and retailers, particularly those that fall into the “Average” or “Challenged” categories from a digital performance standpoint, the…

In episode 190 of Total Retail Talks, Executive Editor Joe Keenan interviews Erik Lautier, chief marketing officer and chief digital officer at Francesca’s, a national fashion and accessories boutique. Listen in as they discuss how Francesca’s identifies a singe view of the customer across many channels, the brand’s partnership with customer data platform AgilOne, and the emerging…

Many retail brands assume that social media is the future of online marketing, and that marketing via email is a dead end. However, this assumption couldn't be further from the truth! Even in the age of social media, email marketing campaigns are still generating results. In fact, here are some stats to prove it: 73…