Gap

Let's face it: Brick-and-mortar retailers have been suffering from slow economic activity and increased competition from online retailers for years, which is why so many of them are closing up their shops. So why the mixed bag title? Because while many traditional brick-and-mortar retailers are closing stores, many of their e-tail counterparts are adding physical store locations to their businesses.

In this era of increased dependence on third-party services, is there anything online retailers can do to experience the benefits of a feature-rich site while protecting and insulating their web performance? Fortunately, with certain approaches, the negative impact of major web service outages can be mitigated. Here are some tips how:

Owning the shopping experience of the future is how Gap Chairman and CEO Glenn Murphy described the motivation behind a wide range of omnichannel strategies he and other senior executives shared during an annual meeting with investors. Murphy and Gap's top division heads provided an overview of strategic initiatives designed to achieve long-term, profitable growth across its portfolio of brands and also highlighted how the company plans to use technology, innovation and scale as competitive advantages as it looks to deliver a world-class omnichannel experience. 

Welcome to Retail Online Integration's fourth annual list of the leading female executives in the omnichannel retail industry. The women chosen for this list hold top-level positions within omnichannel retail organizations, and are being recognized for their position and scope of responsibility, achievements within their own company, and their involvement within the retail industry. In addition to learning about the career paths of these top retail executives, each woman has provided her top tip for omnichannel retail success in 2014.

You may remember the scene in the movie "The Minority Report" when Tom Cruise's character enters a Gap store and is greeted by a hologram of a store associate who welcomes him back to the store and asks how his last purchase — assorted tank tops — worked out for him. When this movie was released in 2002, this personalized in-store experience seemed far into the future, but it's now almost upon us.

Gap's new iPad advertising campaign shows retailers how to set up a commerce-enabled ad that emphasizes content to score conversions. The specialty apparel retailer is running a content-heavy advertising campaign within the WeatherBug iPad application to drum up sales from edited products. Mobile advertising is nothing new for Gap, but the brand's approach to simultaneously building up awareness about its blogging and social community is interesting with this campaign. "Styld.by is a global community of fashion bloggers and shoppers who style Gap clothes with everything else in their wardrobes," said Kari Shellhorn, spokeswoman at Gap.

Rebekka Bay, the creative director of Gap, has strict rules about how to design a collection. She also has rules for how to break the rules. "Fashion is also about instinct and gut reaction," she says. "So if I suddenly wake up in the middle of the night and think, 'The shirt has to be frilly,' and that's what we really want, then I'm going to say, 'Of course it has to be frilly.' " The frilly shirt will be in 

The role of the brick-and-mortar store of yesterday was simpler — put a product in the hand of the consumer. Stock the shelves. Accept payment. Transaction complete. Retailing used to be a much more straightforward concept before technology. Today's customer journey has exploded across touchpoints, powered by technology, enabling purchases from around the globe to happen anytime, anywhere. Yet it isn't clear to what extent these innovations are trickling into real-world retail experiences.

Organizational, operational and technology challenges are hampering retailers’ efforts to meet customers’ demands for a seamless shopping experience across all channels and touchpoints. According to a new research study from Accenture and Hybris Software, retailers view omnichannel maturity as a key brand differentiator for their companies, and improving their ability to provide customers with a seamless shopping experience across all channels as a top priority. The study shows that nearly all (94 percent) retail decision makers surveyed said that their companies face significant barriers to becoming an integrated omnichannel company.

President Obama, in rewarding Gap for its decision to raise minimum wage for its store workers, paid an unexpected visit to one of its namesake stores in New York on Tuesday, reportedly spending about $150 for the First Lady and their daughters. However, the shopping trip to drum up support for his minimum wage hike call to $10.10 from $7.25 may not do much to change most retailers' thinking on the issue. Despite Gap's move to raise minimum wage for its 65,000 workers, most retailers have chosen to stay on the sidelines to