Nordstrom

Welcome to Retail Online Integration's third annual list of the best and brightest women in the cross-channel retail industry. The women highlighted on this list are marketing and merchandising professionals, e-commerce experts, and chief executive officers at cross-channel retail companies of all sizes. They've all helped to position their companies to succeed in today's fast-paced cross-channel retail environment.

Nordstrom is the nation's favorite fashion retail chain, according to an annual consumer study conducted by Market Force Information, a worldwide leader in customer intelligence solutions. The upscale department store edged out Kohl's, which had ranked first in the three previous studies. This year, Kohl's moved to the No. 2 spot overall, followed by Macy's, Dillard's and J.C. Penney.

It would be fair to call Etsy, which bowed in 2005, a disruptor. The online marketplace birthed a new business model that gives independent designers a global platform to sell everything from handmade jewelry to vintage clothing and home furnishings. But lately mainstream, national chains like Nordstrom and West Elm have been turning to Etsy — which swelled to $895.1 million in sales in 2012, up from $525.6 million in 2011 — to inject their stores’ merchandise with a patina of one-of-a-kind-handcraft authenticity, much like many big Hollywood studios set up independent film divisions to burnish their art-house cinema bonafides.

British fashion mogul Sir Philip Green plans to open 10 more Topshop stores in the U.S. within two-and-a-half years, after launching its first California branch in Los Angeles last week. Topshop, which is part of Green's fashion conglomerate Arcadia Group, also has branches in New York, Chicago and Las Vegas, as well as a partnership with upscale fashion department store Nordstrom.

Bloomingdale's, Nordstrom and Saks Fifth Avenue optimized their Valentine's Day shopping guides for smartphone and tablet applications to encourage consumers to make emotional purchases on-the-go. Retailers can certainly benefit from providing seasonal gift guides on mobile apps so that consumers can browse the same products on their desktop, smartphone and tablet. Though in-app purchases won't make or break sales during a gifting holiday such as Valentine's Day, it's vital for the shopping experience to be optimized for mobile to keep up with the shift from e-commerce to mobile commerce, experts say.

Forget email. This group of 40-something men has a much better way to keep in touch. For the past 23 years, Brian Dennehy, CMO of Nordstrom, has been playing anelaborate game of tag with nine of his former classmates. According to the Wall Street Journal, the group met at Gonzaga Preparatory School in Spokane, Wash., where they spent morning breaks darting around campus.

With 2013 still only a month old, it's a good time to take a step back and reflect on just how much the cross-channel retail industry changed last year. As expected, 2012 was the year when cross-channel consolidated its status as the default retail operating model and continued its fast-paced evolution towards a more mature model — omnichannel.

Just like in brick-and-mortar sales, the final purchase is where the rubber meets the road in digital sales. However, a lot of heavy lifting needs to happen in customer engagement and selling before that final purchase. When smart, effective and consistent, this engagement quickly results in a purchase transaction and fulfillment follows. While most online retailers have been paying some attention to the transactional part of the purchase, such as shopping cart and payment processing (although we see some gaps here as well), they could do far better in the up-front engaging and selling that enable the sale.

Looking through all of the Black Friday/Cyber Monday articles on the business wires over the past week has left me in a bit of a haze. Mobile sales are up. Store sales are down. Online sales are up. Promotions worked. Promotions didn't work. It can all get very confusing. How did Cyber Week pan out for your brand?

It took three months to perfect the lighting in the dressing rooms, but the first Spanx retail store opened its doors in Tysons Corner, Va. last Friday. The 14-year-old company, which specializes in shapewear, has become a staple of women's wardrobes in recent years. Many of the company's 200 pieces are sold at department stores such as Nordstrom and Lord & Taylor.