Omnichannel

Amazon shoppers who connect their Amazon and Facebook accounts transport their Facebook friends to Amazon — and can get recommendations from those friends on what to buy.

Sonic, REI and American Eagle Outfitters participated in a ShopAlerts pilot program where 65 percent of consumers purchased a product as a result of a text alert they received.

The Trend Report looked at consumer behavior by channel and found that online purchasing continues to grown steadily while sales from the retail channel are decreasing year-over-year. From 2008 to 2009, sales taking place online grew by 4 percent.

About a month ago, Kmart started placing snippets of its KmartGamer game reviews on store shelves. By doing this, Kmart hopes to bring the online and in-store gaming communities closer together, and connect casual and more hardcore gamers.

It's the goal of every business to turn casual customers into raving fans who refer new customers, give great ratings and reviews, and are an all-around dream for marketers. But how does a small business guide customers up the sales chain? Obviously, having great products and services is key, but connecting with, embracing and educating these casual customers through multiple channels will also help the process.

Retailers (or any marketer or publisher) seeking higher conversion rates must adopt an “innovation attitude” to guide them amid a fertile landscape for new ideas, advanced technology and customer behavior learnings. So advised speaker after speaker at last week's Shop.org Merchandise Summit in Huntington Beach, Calif.

With retailers forced to take a hard look at their bottom lines during the recession, catalogs are adjusting, but not disappearing, says Leslie Linevsky, founder of Catalogs.com. As postage rates climb and customers become concerned about the environmental impact, retailers are scaling back on the number of catalogs they mail out and are using them to drive traffic to their websites.

The mobile Web can augment the in-store shopping experience as many consumers check and compare competitors’ products and prices as they actually peruse store aisles and contemplate purchases. This was a key finding in Compuware Gomez Mobile Benchmark Review of May 2010.

Location-based mobile alerts have led a third of women 18 to 34 to visit a store, according to a recent survey. And 27 percent of that demographic said that mobile messages have impacted their decision to buy in a physical store. The poll, conducted from May 17 to May 19, surveyed 2,046 U.S. adults 18 and older, including 1,710 who own a cell phone and/or a smartphone. It was conducted by Harris Interactive and commissioned by location-based ad company Placecast. It studied opt-in mobile marketing messages only.

The InterACT! Conference, an educational forum for marketers, brand owners and service providers on cross-media direct marketing opportunities and strategies, has launched "Build-a-Buzz" Giveaway - a social networking contest for marketers (or anyone) who wants to win one of four cool prizes: an Apple iPad, HP Netbook, Amazon Kindle or American Express gift card.