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At the Top of Their Game
According to a Forbes article titled "Why Aren't There More Powerful Women In Retail?," author Laura Heller questions why there were only a handful of women in the retail industry named to the publication's 2013 "World's 100 Most Powerful Women" list, which ranks the most powerful women by dollars, media presence and impact.
Effy Jewelry Uses Predictive Marketing to Retain Customers
Effy Jewelry is an omnichannel retailer that has a strong brick-and-mortar presence in the Caribbean and Alaska, catering to consumers on cruise ships. The problem was that customers would get off the ship, make a purchase in one of Effy's retail stores and the brand would never hear from them again. The retailer didn't have a system in place for effectively collecting customer data in-store, making future communication a challenge.
Facebook Ads Help Alex and Ani Increase Sales and AOV
Eco-friendly jewelry retailer Alex and Ani increased its sales and average order value (AOV) last year by ramping up its Facebook ad program.
Prepare for a Data Breach: We’re All at Risk Now

There are two kinds of companies today: those that have already had a data breach and those who don't know their data has been breached. It's a sad fact of our time that nearly every aspect of our society has been hacked, including education, business and government. The Venable law firm reports that 621 confirmed data breaches occurred in 2012 alone, and retailers represented 21.7 percent of network-based data breach incidents.
 Is your company ready? What will it cost for it to be ready? Can data breaches be prevented? These were just some of the key questions covered in a recent Direct Marketing Association (DMA) webinar on retailer readiness for data breaches.
Structure for Success
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.
Tennis Express Leverages Integrated Software Solution to Grow Sales
With the retail environment shifting to one where consumers expect a seamless, hassle-free shopping experience every time they interact with a brand — no matter the channel — Tennis Express realized it needed to upgrade its software systems to meet this need. The retailer was hamstrung by siloed systems for critical business processes (e.g., POS, ERP, purchasing, receiving, inventory, web, mobile), hindering its ability to grow. For example, Tennis Express was unable to get a real-time view of inventory availability across channels, leading to frustrated consumers trying to buy out-of-stock items on the retailer's website.
The Password is …
Recent data breaches, including those of Target, Neiman Marcus, Adobe, LivingSocial and Snapchat, indicate that merely evaluating passwords isn't an effective way to protect the systems that guard online customer account information. These are high-profile examples, but in reality nearly all online merchants are experiencing an onslaught of attacks as criminals attempt to break into their systems and steal credit card and other sensitive data. Even relatively small retailers are being assaulted. For many of these businesses, unless they adopt new authentication tactics and implement better controls, it's just a matter of time until they too become a statistic. 
Studies have repeatedly shown that the most damaging and expensive cyber attacks all have one thing in common: hackers defeat the system's authentication system. Today's sophisticated cybercriminals employ
The Top Women in Omnichannel Retail
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.
What Will Postal Reform Mean to Catalogers?
The long road to getting a bill passed in Washington is rarely smooth. The efforts of the last few years to pass a postal reform bill, whose primary purpose is to efficiently downsize the USPS in light of its diminished use in today's society, has been no exception. During the 112th Congress, the Senate passed a postal reform bill, but the House was unable to counter with one of its own. So far, a year-and-a-quarter into the 113th Congress, a similar pattern has ensued. Here's a recap of where things stood as of press time
