Omnichannel

Mobile technology has revolutionized retail by giving consumers tools to ensure immediate satisfaction through “on-demand” goods and services. For consumers, shopping online is convenient and useful — if you know exactly what you want. However, for most purchases, consumers still overwhelmingly prefer to visit a store. Why? Because the promise of the on-demand economy, which…

When retailers talk about meeting the needs of today's consumers, speed is frequently cited as a differentiating factor. From speed to market with new inventory to quick checkout to expedited delivery, it seems all retailers want to do everything fast. That's why it's a little surprising to hear John Hazen, senior vice president, direct to…

When you think of millennial brands, Carter's, the manufacturer and retailer of baby apparel and accessories, doesn't immediately spring to mind. Yet that's just what Carter's is, catering to new and expectant moms who more often than not fall into the coveted millennial demographic. In fact, 80 percent of all babies are born to millennial…

In early March, Ace Hardware launched a new national advertising campaign featuring real-life Ace owners and store associates, as well as customers of the retailer-owned hardware cooperative. The campaign, which incorporates multiple channels, including television and social media, puts a fresh spin on Ace's signature jingle, "Ace is the place with the helpful hardware folks."…

The popularity of online shopping has led to the rise of an omnichannel retail experience, but omnichannel means more than consumers simply browsing and buying on their computers and phones in addition to coming into brick-and-mortar stores. The reality of customers using more than one channel for shopping is simply a "multichannel" customer experience. Omnichannel,…

There are many things that North Americans and Europeans do differently. Their standards of measurement. Manual vs. automatic transmission. Even social customs. Then there’s shopping. In today’s digitally enabled world, where it’s hard to find a major retailer or brand without a significant digital and mobile presence, you wouldn’t think that North Americans and Europeans…

The battle between online retailers and traditional brick-and-mortar stores is entering a new and exciting phase. Less than a decade ago, experts predicted the demise of the big-box store because e-commerce enabled people to shop for larger inventories from the comfort of their homes and get items delivered in a relatively short time. These experts…

It may be a simple matter of semantics, but brick-and-mortar retail’s fixation on “omnichannel retail” is lulling those companies into a dangerous sense of complacency because it is often misinterpreted to mean multiple channels doing their own thing, one retail consultant is warning. “I’ve watched this whole transformation going on with digital, and I’m so disappointed…

The vast majority of brands still only aspire to omnichannel marketing. Econsultancy’s Adobe Quarterly Digital Intelligence Briefing suggests that, in 2015, only 14 percent of brands took an integrated approach to all campaigns across all channels. The same results show this number hasn’t changed since 2013. Omnichannel involves coordinating a seamless and consistent marketing message…

The National Retail Federation (NRF) recently released its sales forecast for 2016, and it's predicting steady growth year-over-year of 3.1 percent. While this is on par with previous years’ gains, it’s just not good enough for retailers looking to blow the doors off in 2016. The retail industry is constantly evolving, forcing brands to generate new and…