Omnichannel

The 2014 holiday season generated a whopping $616.1 billion in revenue, with e-commerce accounting for $101.9 billion of the Christmas shopping pie. And 2015 is on track to be even bigger. A recent eMarketer report estimated increases of 3.2 and 14.4 percent for overall and e-commerce purchases respectively, rounding out holiday sales at an anticipated…

We’ve been hearing about the "Store of the Future" for some time now. Retail executives have spent the past 18 months experimenting with digital store technologies such as contextual digital displays, in-store sensors, beacons and analytics. These early pilot projects have yielded some successes, increasing customer convenience and unlocking new value as shoppers opt to…

Ms. Wesson and Aimee Cho, her business partner, have, after all, poured their style convictions into 1.61, a year-old gender-free label built largely on loosefitting trousers, swagger coats and easy shirts — items that they wear themselves and offer in varying sizes to both women and men. They are among the latest in a raft…

Over 1,500 top retailers gathered in Boston this week for eTail East to discuss e-commerce trends and share ideas on the future of online retail. Here’s a recap and the top lessons I’m taking home from this jam-packed four-day event. Top Retailing Themes at eTail East We often talk about the idea that “content is…

Target, the second largest general merchandise retailer in the U.S., announced this morning that it will start testing beacon technology in 50 of its stores nationwide. With beacon technology, the company says it will be able to send information about deals as well as recommendations directly to consumers’ smartphones, provided they opt in to receive…

Retail was a vast and varied industry even before the internet, mobile devices and a host of other technologies transformed consumer behaviors and expectations. Since then, the gradual changes implied by retail “evolution” have been replaced by enormously transformational leaps. Despite this ever-growing complexity, I believe retail today is being shaped (or reshaped) by three…

Retailers large and small are looking to integrate the expanding channels through which they interact with consumers, from store to phone to tablet to computer, and back to the store. Whether we’re looking at mega-retailers like Wal-Mart and Home Depot or the modestly sized U.K.-based noodle shop chain Wagamama, the push is toward connecting a…

The shopping cart icon you see on a retailer’s website has a lot to say about the current state and future challenges of omnichannel retail. On the surface, a shopping cart is simply a tool for shoppers to purchase items or save them to a wish list. As you dissect the cart further, however, it…

This June, the headlines exploded with story after story about Facebook offering free beacons to retailers. Finally, the potential to bring e-commerce-level shopper engagement to brick-and-mortar stores through beacons became more plausible. Since Facebook has a massive, always-on user base, this opens doors for widespread beacon use, overcoming the major hurdle of beacons relying on…

For an increasing number of consumers, if you don’t have a fast, easy-to-use mobile website or app, you don’t exist. Think about that for a minute. That big, slick, content-rich e-commerce site you’ve spent so much time, money and effort building, maintaining and promoting might as well be invisible to the ever-growing ranks of untethered…