Showrooming

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.

Similar to showrooming at physical stores, consumers are shopping at some websites, but then going to other sites to make a purchase at a cheaper price. That's the view of John McCarvel, president and CEO of Crocs, in explaining why internet sales in the Americas region fell 32.8 percent in the third quarter. "We're certainly pleased to see that on Amazon.com in July, 23 of the top 100 styles sold were Crocs," McCarvel said on a conference call. "However, we believe we're seeing some of the same showrooming challenges impacting Crocs' direct growth of our own already significant e-commerce business."

Best Buy has launched a star-studded holiday advertising campaign that attempts to combat showrooming with stories of in-store shopping successes. The retailer debuted its first holiday ad, featuring actor Will Arnett, Sunday during the World Series. Other upcoming spots will include appearances by LL Cool J, Maya Rudolph and Jason Schwartzman. "Consumers want the right gifts, at the right price, as easily as possible. Whether in store or online, there's no better way to shop for consumer electronics this holiday. Best Buy is the ultimate holiday showroom," Best Buy Senior Vice President of Marketing Scott Moore said in a statement. 

Retailers continue to make changes to their stores based on the notion that, like Apple's sleek and busy retail locations, if they can just get customers to futz around with products in the store long enough, they'll eventually buy something right then and there, rather than buying it cheaper online. Target is the latest to give this idea a shot in its electronics department. The Minnesota-based retail chain is testing a minimalist redesign emphasizing interaction with products at a number of its stores, reports the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

Fossil hopes to beef up its in-store technology within the next two years, offering customers a number of ways to access, browse and purchase products. "It's really important for our target customers," said Andrew Hess, Fossil's vice president of IT, adding that the brand's target customers are typically well-connected shoppers in their 20s or early 30s. "We're trying to meet some of their expectations."

Beauty retailer Sephora has launched Sephora University Beauty Classes, a new program designed to help beauty lovers of all ages and abilities master everything from building a skin care routine to creating the perfect smoky eye. Now available in more than 60 stores throughout the United States, these complimentary classes are the newest way in which Sephora is striving to further enhance the client experience.

Nordstrom Labs is a small team of techies, designers, entrepreneurs, statisticians, researchers and artists whose mission is to discover what will be in the future of retailing. It's one of the most important initiatives underway at Nordstrom, as management looks to build on its legacy of customer service and care in a technological world. Based in Seattle, also the hometown of Amazon.com, Nordstrom is well aware that the future with its tech-savvy consumers will bring many profound changes.

Pinterest, and specifically the act of "pinning," is driving people into stores and influencing purchase decisions. Recent data distributed by Vision Critical and highlighted in the Harvard Business Review found that 21 percent of Pinterest users had bought an item in a store after pinning, repinning or liking the item on the site. Vision Critical describes this as part of a wider phenomenon it calls "reverse showrooming," in which consumers search or browse products online and then enter the physical shop to make a final purchase.

We may be in the dog days of summer, but retailers and brands are hard at work gearing up for one of the busiest shopping periods of the year, back to school (BTS). Second only to the winter holiday season, BTS shopping marks the start of a mad dash for retailers as parents look to stock up on new clothing, school supplies and even electronics. In 2012, parents spent approximately $689 per child on back-to-school items.

According to a recent survey conducted by Compuware, global consumers prefer native mobile apps over mobile websites, primarily because native apps are perceived as being more convenient, faster and easier to navigate. However, if a mobile app fails to work fast and reliably the first time, up to 79 percent of end users will retry it only once or twice before giving up on the app. It's quite clear that users won't tolerate problematic mobile apps.