Omnichannel

Consumers first abandoned credit cards during the Great Recession, choosing instead to rely on cash to fund their purchases. But evidence indicates that since the beginning of 2011, consumers are returning to credit usage, but with an important change — without the return to revolving debt that's traditionally a hallmark of consumer credit card usage.

Kmart is driving traffic to its store locations via a new mobile initiative that rewards consumers when they complete interactive challenges. The company partnered with SCVNGR on the mobile program, which enables consumers to compete in challenges to unlock rewards and discounts.

A cause marketing program involving QR codes on bags of Pedigree dog food is part of the month-long Pets Love Wal-Mart campaign. Throughout September, Pedigree will donate a bowl of food to shelter dogs for every QR code scanned. The codes can be found on over 200,000 40-pound bags distributed exclusively at Wal-Mart.

This month, Express is enhancing the customer experience by launching its first-ever catalog in many different channels. The company studied its customer and found that customers want to shop in many different ways. To accompany customer wants, Express added e-commerce, m-commerce and f-commerce to its resume over the last few years and the catalog seems to be the next logical step.

Wal-Mart's U.K. subsidiary Asda announced that it's mobilized its grocery site to enable shopping from a smartphone. According to Asda, the new mobile site offers all of the features on Asda.com, in which customers can register, shop and amend an existing order or delivery slot up until 10 p.m. the day before their delivery is due.

Lowe's plans to outfit employees with 42,000 iPhone 4s next month, with custom apps that will make use of the device as a point-of-sale system as part of a technology-heavy retail overhaul. The retailer will introduce a new MyLowes online tool and implement the iPhones in an effort to catch rival Home Depot, which invested more than $60 million on handheld Motorola POS system last year.

overstockArt.com announced the official launch of its mobile website. The launch represents another milestone for the company as it continues to make strides in technological innovation. Consumers can now conveniently access the popular online art gallery's collection of more than 60,000 reproduction oil paintings and decorative ceramic tiles on their BlackBerrys, iPhones, Droids, and other small-screen mobile devices.

Now that the final days of summer have come to an end, retailers are in the thick of planning for the busy holiday shopping season. As you start to plan your campaigns, it's important to take a step back and look at how consumers are using their mobile and tablet devices to drive in-store and on-device purchases.

There's no other platform that can allow you to touch and engage with a product or brand like mobile can, so intrigue users to interact with your advertising campaign.

For the last 25 years, Dennis May has been involved in the retail industry — and he's loved every second of it. From his modest beginning selling audio equipment to help support himself while in college (that was the cool job at the time, May recalls) to his tenure today as president and CEO of one of the fastest-growing cross-channel retail brands out there, the one constant has been retail. But that's just part of the reason we've chosen May as our 2011 cross-channel retailer of the year.