User Experience

Third-Party Services: The Ultimate E-Commerce Friend or Foe?
March 28, 2017 at 9:24 am

External third-party services can be a tremendous asset for online retailers. They allow sites to quickly and easily incorporate critical core functionalities — e.g., reviews, payments, site search, analytics — as well as “nice to haves” that help sites stand out — e.g., A/B testing, social plug-ins, product tours. Brands can implement these functionalities with…

Narvar Post-Purchase Benchmark 2017
March 27, 2017 at 6:03 pm

External third-party services can be a tremendous asset for online retailers. They allow sites to quickly and easily incorporate critical core functionalities — e.g., reviews, payments, site search, analytics — as well as “nice to haves” that help sites stand out — e.g., A/B testing, social plug-ins, product tours. Brands can implement these functionalities with […]

Inside Sephora's Formula for Creating Experiential Retail
March 21, 2017 at 1:47 pm

Calvin McDonald, president and CEO, Sephora Americas, opened his keynote presentation yesterday at Shoptalk in Las Vegas with a simple question for the audience: Can a retailer truly be experiential? During the next 20 minutes, McDonald proceeded to answer that question in the affirmative, unsurprisingly naming Sephora as a brand that has become experiential for…

Add to Cart: Deal Makers and Deal Breakers of the Online Shopping Experience
March 10, 2017 at 9:04 am

Calvin McDonald, president and CEO, Sephora Americas, opened his keynote presentation yesterday at Shoptalk in Las Vegas with a simple question for the audience: Can a retailer truly be experiential? During the next 20 minutes, McDonald proceeded to answer that question in the affirmative, unsurprisingly naming Sephora as a brand that has become experiential for […]

Retailers Invest More in Research to Improve Customer Experience
March 2, 2017 at 8:32 pm

Customer experience (CX) and user research are no longer relegated to a few lone champions in a retail organization. Understanding and improving the user experience has become the entire organization's objective, from product designers to marketers to senior executives. Read that again. Just as artificial intelligence (AI) is booming, so too is organization-wide demand for…

What Do Consumers Expect From Retail?
March 1, 2017 at 7:00 pm

It’s been hard times recently for retailers, for example, R.H. Macy & Co. Founded by Rowland Hussey Macy in 1858 in New York City, on opening day the company had sales of $11.08. That would be $328.10 today based on inflation. Macy's moved to Herald Square in 1902 and through expansion eventually became the “largest…

Walker Sands Future of Retail 2016 - Reinventing Retail: 4 Predictions for 2016 and Beyond
February 28, 2017 at 11:03 am

It’s been hard times recently for retailers, for example, R.H. Macy & Co. Founded by Rowland Hussey Macy in 1858 in New York City, on opening day the company had sales of $11.08. That would be $328.10 today based on inflation. Macy’s moved to Herald Square in 1902 and through expansion eventually became the “largest […]

Retail Learnings From 2016 Already Playing Out in Q1 2017
February 15, 2017 at 6:32 pm

Lessons learned during the 2016 end-of-year shopping season are already finding applications in the retail space as store, sales and customer experience models continue to evolve. Retailers are focused on developing new approaches to better target consumers via mobile, online and in-store sales to not only remain relevant, but innovative in the retail marketplace. The…