Omnichannel

Plenty of retailers have leveraged user-generated content (e.g., customer photos and videos) from contests and promotions in branded marketing campaigns before, but not quite like Sears just did. The company's Startup + Developer Challenge, held this past summer, was a "code-a-thon" designed to find the best and brightest minds in the tech community of Silicon Valley — and then use those minds to Sears' benefit.

As the year comes to a close, it's time for my annual roundup of omnichannel retail predictions for the year ahead. I'm focusing on a few interesting trends I saw come to light in 2013 that I believe will become even more widespread next year. Enjoy!

With consumer usage of smartphones continuing to skyrocket, it's past time for your brand to have a mobile presence, be it a mobile-optimized site, app or both. To help your efforts in generating sales from mobile devices, consider the following eight tips:

A year-and-a-half-long gain in the U.S. housing market has led to an increasing number of consumers investing in remodeling efforts and, in turn, has benefitted Home Depot, which reported a stronger third quarter than investors expected. For the quarter, the company's revenue increased 7.4 percent to $19.5 billion, coming in above analysts’ average estimate of $19.2 billion. In addition, comparable store sales for U.S. stores increased 8.2 percent. Because of consumers increasing willingness to invest in home projects, the company saw the average purchase price per customer rise by 3 percent to $56.27.

Despite conventional industry wisdom, shoppers who use mobile devices for showrooming are almost twice as likely to purchase from the retailer in-store or online (38 percent) than buy elsewhere (21.6 percent). A new study from e-commerce technology provider SeeWhy finds that one-third of more than 60,000 consumers surveyed who owned a mobile device had used it as part of their shopping process, and 12 percent do it routinely. When asked about the actions shoppers took when using a mobile device in-store, the most common behaviors were looking for cheaper prices elsewhere (35 percent) and reading reviews of the product (34 percent).

Apple wants to make holiday shopping easier with the iPad's first-ever retail app, which comes loaded with features to make product discovery more seamless. The Apple Store for iPad is designed specifically for iOS 7, capitalizing on using gestures to find more products from Apple's online store. It essentially wraps up everything currently listed for sale on Apple.com and packages it up in one easy-to-navigate app. Since iPhone users typically use their devices to look up store directions and get information about products quickly, Apple created a different experience for the iPad with deeper swipe, zoom and gesture functionality.

Burberry is known worldwide for its luxury retail experience, but now the brand ups the ante with an iPad deployment to include loyalty, clienteling and a personalized in-store experience. The retailer has fully embraced and invested in digital, both online and offline, a point of differentiation from many of its peers. iPads continue to encourage results in-store, which now comprise almost 30 percent of the online business. The new clienteling tool is live in more than 300 stores. Customers can also choose to buy a product online and collect it in-store at more than 80 locations globally.

Google is opening showrooms in six U.S. cities, promoting its latest products and stepping up retail efforts against Apple and Microsoft as the year-end holiday shopping season gets under way. Called Winter Wonderlabs, the outlets feature products such as Nexus 7 tablets, Chromebook computers and Chromecast video-streaming devices, the company said on a new website Monday. Consumers can order the gadgets online after looking at the wares. The stores also feature a large snow globe that lets shoppers take videos of themselves, complete with fake snow.

Expanded channels, new store openings and a new distribution center planned for the remainder of 2013 and beyond, Seattle-based high-end fashion retailer Nordstrom's plans haven't been derailed by a decrease in profits in this year's third quarter. The company isn't only maintaining its omnichannel, e-commerce and brick-and-mortar stores’ growth models, it even bumped up the low end of its full-year earnings guidance. For the quarter ending Nov. 2, Nordstrom is reporting net income of $137 million. This is a drop of 6 percent compared to last year's third-quarter earnings of $146 million. 

H&M plans to offer customers a new, high-tech brand experience this week with the opening of its flagship store at 4 Times Square. The flagship store — equipped with 300 employees, 44 fitting rooms, 24 cash registers and longer hours of operation seven days a week — is set up to manage high-volume traffic and sales. The company and brokers alike both expect this pricy investment in Times Square will pay off, considering stores in that location often have higher sales volume.