In the world of brick and mortar retail, bigger is not always better. Boutiques that specialize in catering to a particular shopper have long found that focus on their core customers is lucrative. Now Target is trying that model on for size.

Smaller Target stores have been around in cities for a little while, because the small footprint allowed the store to fit into a cityscape. When there’s no room to build a mega store, Target took advantage of a city location, but pared down its offerings in a “Target Express.” Today, all the mini stores are rebranded as “Target,” and the retail merchandizing is focused on serving the specific needs of local customers rather than trying to provide a wide variety of tastes. The Washington Post recently wrote about the new Target in a Arlington, Va., neighborhood.

Target has long made use of data analysis to target customers through the mail, offering coupons and specials to individuals based on

Retail customer intelligence and other forms of data analysis can help businesses target their advertising and optimize store operations.

their shopping histories. Now the department store is aggregating that information to create shopping experiences that are customized for the local shoppers. So, for example, does research show there are several local knitting groups? Check out the organic cotton yarn in our craft section. Lots of nursery schools? See the expanded children’s book section. Landlocked city with no hunting or fishing clubs? Save the rifles and reels for another store.

Target seems to have learned a great deal from its debacle in Canada, where a lack of quality market research resulted in the retailer stocking irrelevant products. Management didn’t recognize the difference between U.S. shoppers and their Canadian counterparts, and the expansion was a flop. The move into micromarketing the smaller stores indicates an intent to offer shoppers a quick and easy way to find products they have in mind, rather than foster more of a browsing experience.

Such an approach means a good deal of curation by management. Determining what products will appeal most to the demographic requires data analysis, not only of purchases within the store but also of activities within the community. In a way, it is similar to the charter of a local daily newspaper: The news of the day takes on relevance only as it relates to the community. For example, a day care center opening is of interest to that city’s residents, but not to those of the state. Further, that center’s opening would indicate more children in the neighborhood, and a local Target might beef up offerings targeted at children, as well as their mothers.

Target is the nation’s sixth-largest retailer, with $73 billion in revenue last year. Once a powerhouse among style-savvy shoppers, it has lost its cache in recent years, mainly due to a faltering economy. But shoppers it may have lost to lower priced chains, such as Walmart, may be lured back as the economy rebounds and Target once again regains its reputation as being “in the know” about its customers’ tastes.

This entry was posted by Jennifer Bosavage on Tuesday, November 10th, 2015 at 7:52 am .

Online retail giant Amazon recently opened a brick and mortar store. The ecommerce behemoth has ventured into territory where others have failed to trun a profit — RIP Waldenbooks and Borders.

But what if the stores aren’t aiming to make money, at least not primarily? What if, instead, the store is ramping up as a marketing tool for Amazon?

Amazon is one of the few large retailers to grow faster than smaller merchants.

So far, only one book store has opened its doors, at that’s in Seattle. Most of the news reports have mentioned the store’s unconventional way of displaying books: front cover outward. That, of course, lessens the number of books on display, but online shoppers are accustomed to being “greeted” by a book’s cover, rather than its spine. It makes sense to me there might be a correlation between seeing a cover and buying a book.

That’s not a new idea; independent booksellers have — and do — display books that way, but it does limit how many books can be kept in stock. But criticizing Amazon for making such a “retail newbie” mistake, as some have, is ridiculous. Only 5,000 to 6,000 books will be sold at Amazon Books, a small number compared with other bookstores. But Amazon seems to be using the stores as a physical implementation of “suggested for you,” as it offers 32.8 million books for sale in varying formats: paperbacks, hardcover, Kindle, audio CD, board books and audio books. Clearly, it via its omnichannel strategy, it can provide any book desired.

Indeed, some of the criticism seems petty, but booksellers are smarting from 20 years of online competition for which it was unprepared. Some suggest there’s not much new going on in the stores, citing, for example, the brief recommendations from Amazon reviews on cards by each book (hand-scripted employee selections are staples in independent bookstores). Seems to me that’s simply implementing a best practice of making a personal connection using a low-tech method. As author Charles Caleb Colton said, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”

Others have suggested the store set-up is not conducive to shopping, noting, for example, the tables were placed too close to the entrance, discouraging browsing. But most people don’t go to the bookstore for a quick hit — it’s generally a destination. That doesn’t mean shoppers want to play hide and seek. Allowing customers to find a book quickly makes them happy, and should not dissuade them from shopping further.

In fact, reports on the stores seem to indicate Amazon is attempting to put the customer first. Making the atmosphere appealing with books easy to find, and at prices in line with those online seems to add up to a positive customer experience. A bit of the fault-finding is unsubstantiated, like the inference the stores will not have knowledgeable staff members. Take the comments of John Mutter, co-founder and editor-in-chief of the book industry newsletter Shelf Awareness in GeekWire:

It’ll be interesting to see how the book retailer that relies on algorithms and readers’ recommendations and cold sales metrics will do in a brick-and-mortar space, where customers are used to dealing with booksellers who love books and have a lot of personal knowledge of the kind that is opposite of Amazon’s corporate approach.

It will also be interesting to see how brick and mortar responds to Amazon’s algorithm of customer service, price and selection, this time in “real life.” After years of missed opportunities to engage customers, perhaps it is this push by an online giant, which heavily relies on business intelligence, that will spur booksellers to try and to implement new ways of delighting their customers.

This entry was posted by Jennifer Bosavage on Monday, November 9th, 2015 at 11:24 am .

Retail Pro International is pleased to announce the general availability release for Retail Pro Prism POS – 1.3.4. This release includes several enhancements to the Retail Pro Prism capabilities, including Physical Inventory functionality. Some of the more significant additions are noted below. Contact your Retail Pro Business Partner today for more details and to see if your business is ready for Retail Pro Prism®.

Keep track of all your inventory
Retail Pro Prism now includes a new Physical Inventory (PI) area so you can take regular, physical counts of your merchandise on a macro level in the store or warehouse, or on a smaller scale within a single bin or shelf.

Prism PI Capabilities:

• Start a physical inventory files for any location
• Record physical counts information to a physical inventory file already in process by scanning barcodes or manually typing item identifiers
• Import counts with a file (fixed-length or delimited)
• Read current on-hand values from inventory and write those values to the physical inventory file as the start quantities
• For easier review, a separate discrepancy display lists all items whose physical counts do not equal the starting values
• Print physical inventory information
• Send PI sheets to Retail Pro 9 for updating

Increase efficiency at the POS
This release includes a new Options button that increases efficiency through easier access to most common POS tasks, including:

• Transaction Lookup
• Pending Transactions
• Customer Lookup
• Gift Card Balance check (if use of EFT or central gift cards is enabled)

Look up customer details – securely
Customer area continues to be the focus as consumer-centric initiatives drive store processes. In this release customer functional area includes:

• New “Apply Customer Tax Areas” preference that gives retailers greater flexibility when it comes to assignment of customer tax areas
• Easy access to check and print customer’s central gift card balance (optional)
• New workflow with enhanced security functionality for checking a customer’s store credit balance
• New workflow for ‘forced tender’ transaction

Retail your way with ease

• Automatic Proxy recognition of hardware configuration changes in the Admin Console
• A new version of the Prism Launcher (1.6) for use with iOS 9 devices
• Additional designs for Document Designer
• Enhanced RP Prism Communications via PrismMQ

This entry was posted by Ulyana Avetisov on Wednesday, November 4th, 2015 at 5:28 pm .

On October 17, global experts across the retail technologies ecosystem were awarded the Retail Pro business excellence awards for outstanding performance in their regional spheres. For the first time in Retail Pro International history, two partners tied for the coveted global Partner of the Year award, and were recognized for their outstanding performance – Retail Technology Company of Saudi Arabia and Grupo Ejje of El Salvador.

Success is not built in isolation.

At its very core, success is the synergy of collective effort of diverse individuals with distinct strengths, who come together to form something greater, more meaningful, more impactful.

When pursued independently, success is beyond reach even for the greatest of people. But when great people come together – when they persist in determined forward movement toward an even greater goal – that is when success is planted, takes root, and bears abundant fruit.

That is the nature of the alliance between Retail Pro International and its partners. We recognize your continued perseverance for growth. We commend your diligent work and congratulate your great achievement.

This entry was posted by Ulyana Avetisov on Wednesday, November 4th, 2015 at 5:01 pm .

Retailers catering to the “mom market” should be happy to hear that this segment is now more likely than previously to complete a purchase using a smartphone, according to a new survey from BabyCenter. Previously, mothers used their mobile devices primarily to compare prices and find coupons. Today, they are using mobile throughout the buying process.

The BabyCenter study is particularly interesting because it highlights a significant shift in buying behavior. According to the research:

In just one year, there has been a 33% increase in moms using their smartphones for making actual purchases, with 64% of moms saying that they had completed a purchase via mobile in the last month, in comparison to 48% who said the same in 2014. In addition, 70% have used their smartphone for shopping while they were inside a physical store, with 48% saying they would purchase items via their device if they could not find them on the racks.

In addition, 58% said they use a retailer app, up 14% from last year. In total, all of that data speaks to the importance of having an app that is optimized for mobile shopping.

Mothers are increasing using smartphones to purchase.

Retailers must understand how aggravating it is for customers to be using a mobile device and  landing on a Web site that takes forever to load, with teeny tiny font size and is difficult to navigate. Few shoppers are patient enough to pinch, zoom and scroll to read about any product. It’s often easier for prospects to leave a site and go to a competitor’s. Inconvenience is an excellent motivator. A mobile site should load in less than three seconds and be easy to maneuver.

Mobile optimization is not optional — it’s mandatory. Providing superior user experiences is job one for retailers, online as well as off, and is an important differentiator for retailers. Providing an excellent online experience clearly increases user satisfaction and boosts loyalty: For example, customers bookmark sites they enjoy using. Retailers that do not require too much typing (cited by dd% of BabyCenter respondents) and offer conveniences such as one-click shopping (cited as an attractive feature by 40% of respondents) will reap the benefits of cultivating a loyal customer base.

This entry was posted by Jennifer Bosavage on Friday, October 30th, 2015 at 8:09 am .

Although business analytics helps retailers create more up-sell and cross-sell opportunities, sifting through all the data that is collected is a painstaking job. Going one step farther and determining relevant connections is even more arduous.

Retailers ready to embrace the power of analytics begin by layering transactional and behavioral data in order to create extremely smart and contextual customer profiles. That then lets retailers improve the customer experience through personalization and intelligence-based decisioning.

“Salespeople are investing their time poring through a heap of possibilities to find the good ones,” Eric Siegel, author of Predictive Analytics: The Power to Predict Who Will Click, Buy, Lie, or Die, told the Harvard Business Review. “If sales is a needle in a haystack, analytics can make the haystack a whole lot smaller.”

That’s where predictive algorithms come into play. Those mathematical models use past buying behavior and other data to discover insights and predict outcomes that are important to retailers, such as the odds of closing a deal, the most suitable cross-sales opportunities and approximate deal value. That’s the type of information that saves salespeople time — and, as the adage goes, time is money.

Predicting the future isn’t so much of a fantasy, anymore.

Most often, transactional data has been leading the charge at retailers. That information is numbers driven, structured and stored in databases and provides insights into how products are related through co-purchases and how shoppers and products are related. It’s that type of data that has been more commonly used to drive promotional marketing, such as targeted email campaigns.

Behavioral data complements transactional, but is unstructured. Much of it is text-based, and can be found in blogs, or social network posts. It describes more than simply “what happened,” but looks at “why it happened.” Therefore, the quality of the data is critical in order for retailers to make reliable predictions. That is a labor intensive process that cannot be ignored.

Scrubbing and verifying all that information is time-consuming because each point at which data streams are tapped, formatted and stored must be painstakingly reviewed. And whenever data is ported to another sub-system, translation errors can happen. So its mission critical that the process as well as the data be conducted methodically and carefully.

Finally, predictive analytics requires retailers to define a goal and work backward. For example, if the goal is to sell more sweaters, the information needed to boost those sales is derived from learning: Who, what and when? And, then determining how the retailer can add value. Predictive analytics can answer each of those questions for each individual customer. A deployed solution would run this campaign in a continuous fashion. Each day in the Fall, as the winter approaches, the campaign would segment a different set of customers that would receive a personalized email based on preferences inferred from past purchasing, or even browsing, experiences. Simultaneously, the system tracks which customers have bought sweaters to offer additional rewards, or to avoid spamming.

Data from online sources such as blogs, social networks and business networks is flooding the Internet. Retailers who can make sense of their sales data and shopper information can better understand their customers , identify trends early, and make better, more informed decisions.

This entry was posted by Jennifer Bosavage on Friday, October 30th, 2015 at 6:35 am .

Retail Pro International and our expert business partners from all over the globe convening today in San Francisco to sync strategies around the future of retail, which is the reality at Retail Pro International: platform technology.

This entry was posted by Ulyana Avetisov on Saturday, October 17th, 2015 at 10:14 am .

This entry was posted by Ulyana Avetisov on Friday, October 16th, 2015 at 3:41 pm .

It’s happened to many retailers: Their bright and shiny apps are up and ready to roll, yet no one uses them. Worse, very few customers even bother to download the apps. The challenge is mighty: Design an app that is unique, offers a differentiated experience and provides the customer something he or she finds useful. Succeed, and the consumer will return to the app. Fail and you risk losing that customer to the competition.

Mobile apps and shopping sites offer a great deal of convenience to consumers, but retailers should keep the customer experience in mind when implementing their mobile options.

We know why apps fail — customer dissatisfaction — so the question is: What makes an app a winner? Forester Research recently released a survey that found three main reasons for success: Convenience, speed and personalized experience.

Convenience. Too often, consumers are turned off by apps that are cumbersome. They are difficult to use or just not intuitive enough. Ease of use is a top consumer requirement. Forty percent of the Forester respondents said app features such as stored settings make their lives easier. In addition, using an app should be a different and unique experience than using a Website, or else shoppers won’t be bothered. Making the app a tool for improving in-store shopping is an imperative.

Speed. Along with being differentiated from the Website, the app must be fast. Apps that take too long to download information are worthless. The retailer should also offer free Wi-fi to facilitate the process in-store. Outside of the store, a shopper should be able to quickly check store locations, opening and closing times, product reviews and inventory.

Personalization. The ultimate retailer app provides shoppers a one-of-a-kind experience that focuses on value for users, which results in loyalty for retailers. Personalized content, such as purchase suggestions, can be curated by analyzing purchase and app interaction history, data based on a user’s location, or factors including time of day or weather. For some retailers, personalization is based on an existing loyalty program.

Finally, to know a good app is to love it: The Forester survey reported that consumers who are weekly users of retailer apps are more likely to say that stored settings, benefits for using the apps and personalized content were reasons they use apps rather than websites, compared to less frequent app users. Once a retailer unlocks the key to an efficient smartphone app, customers will be loyal to it — which means happy, repeat customers.

This entry was posted by Jennifer Bosavage on Thursday, October 8th, 2015 at 6:20 am .

It’s a challenge faced by every retailer in the age of interconnected things: How can customer interaction increase?

If retailers knew more about their customers, they could create and deploy offers that would be in tune with their buying habits. But consumers are hesitant to share key information with retailers.

Many fear being deluged with unwanted offers or marketing information. Others view it as an invasion of privacy.

Retailers might have truly innovative and relevant offerings, but getting a foot in the digital door is increasingly difficult.

Recent findings from a Forester survey found only about a third of survey respondents are willing to share location data and enable push notifications in retailer apps.

The value of doing either was a concern for consumers. So retailers designing new apps must make sure the features offer clear consumer value, or they will not be enabled.

Here are three tips geared toward increasing customer engagement to remember when creating or updating an app.

Provide extra incentives for using the app. Regular users of an app can easily be rewarded with “secret sales,” better coupons or “insider perks.” And apps are not only a tool for large retailers — small ones can also benefit from marketing via smartphone.

For example, a pet store might note a particular app-enabled customer buys a certain amount of aquarium equipment each month.

If customers place, say, three orders for pickup through the app, why not offer a free in-home tank cleaning, with that third order delivered?

Not only is the customer delighted with the opportunity to leave the aquarium scrubbing to someone else that month, but it also introduces him or her to a new service offering.

Promote brand loyalty. Surveys have traditionally found that consumers will most often share personal information if they feel loyal to a brand.

But just meeting basic customer needs — in-stock inventory, convenient store hours, polite salespeople, etc. — isn’t enough.

Retailers should consider defining and then promoting their company cultures.

A company culture that connects with customers’ personal beliefs is one that engenders loyalty.

When marketers make that connection, customers are more than willing to share their data.

A brand becomes emblematic of the company’s culture and what it stands for.

When that meshes with what customers hold dear, loyalty is born.

Push location-specific offers. Just as savvy real estate agents preach that it’s all about location, the same holds true for marketing.

With more location information retailers can position campaigns to appeal to certain customer segments.

Location-based marketing uses global-positioning technology to send geographic-specific business marketing to consumers via their mobile devices.

Those customers will be more responsive because the offer is clearly relevant to them.

The key is in crafting important and meaningful messages so potential customers will sign up to receive them.

It’s worth the effort: Ads and offers that integrate time and the consumer’s location reportedly can generate two to 10 times the amount of business than a generic ad.

It’s all about making customers happy and feel appreciated.

The bottom line is that should be the focus of any retail app.

If you succeed, the digital door to customers’ information will be held wide open for you.

This entry was posted by Jennifer Bosavage on Wednesday, October 7th, 2015 at 9:37 am .