If a brick-and-mortar or online store makes purchasing totally mobile — and offers personalized coupons — will shoppers will be more likely to purchase? A new Retail Consumer Sentiment Survey published by Merkle Inc. indicates that will indeed happen, particularly if the consumers are young.

Mobile coupons see increasing customer acceptance.

A wide majority, 67%, of respondents under the age of 50 are interested in a totally mobile path to purchase. In addition, 46% under 50 would like personalized offers sent to their smartphones while shopping in-store. Those coupons should ideally also incorporate time and location.

Mobile offers are part and parcel of any modern loyalty program. But while  loyalty programs are supposed to retain customers and distract them from the competition, few — less than one-fifth — of consumers consider today’s loyalty programs to be a main differentiator. Many of those programs are price and transaction based, and the retail landscape is evolving. Just as important to many customers is a store’s personalized, omnichannel approach. According to the survey, retailers that master a personalized, omni-channel approach to loyalty generate results on the order of magnitude of 10 times the revenue of non-program customers.

A recent survey by Deloitte of 2000 customers found smartphones influence 19 percent of sales at physical stores. That’s up from just five percent in 2012. When PCs, tablets and smartphones are factored together, digital technologies influence 36 percent of in-store sales and that will likely increase to 50 percent by the close of 2015, according to Deloitte. In addition, 4 percent said they use a mobile device either before or during a shopping trip. For those customers using a digital device, the conversion rate was 40 percent higher at the store. Order size was 22 percent higher for digital-wielding in-store shoppers. The kicker? Eight in 10 would rather use their device or a kiosk versus talking to an actual human being in a store.

That doesn’t say much for in-store customer service. But it does point to a certain type of customer, at a certain type of store, that could be made to feel special through technology rather than the personal touch.

As Paul Schottmiller, Merkle senior vice president, strategy, retail and consumer goods noted: “Consumers’ expectations are high, and retailers have never had more options for using technology to deliver differentiated customer experiences.”

This entry was posted by Jennifer Bosavage on Wednesday, February 11th, 2015 at 9:33 pm .

In the historical town of Lexington, Mass., retailers walk a fine line between respecting tradition and embracing modern business practices. Crafty Yankee, a fine gift shop located right where “the shot heard round the world”was launched, started using Retail Pro as its retail management solution in 2000, leveraging its robust functionality to transform what originally was a sleepy little business into a vibrant, charitable part of the community. Kathy Fields, owner of Crafty Yankee, has a rich background in retail. She had worked in senior positions at Dillard’s and Federated Department Stores before taking a (very) early retirement in her mid-forties. But her retirement didn’t go quite as planned. Kathy Fields bought Crafty Yankee from its founders in 1994, wanting to take on a business that would free up her time and allow her to give back to those less fortunate.

Embracing Modern Business Practices

Shortly after the acquisition, she recognized the need to put in a computer system. Initially, she opened a couple satellite stores and networked computers so she could be away from the store—perhaps enjoy a vacation—and still be in touch remotely. Business was growing but Fields eventually realized she needed to consolidate her business into one location and, to be successful, have a thorough understanding of which merchandise was selling and when it was bought. Knowing those sales trends would give her a concrete understanding of what was going on in her business so she could offer popular products and streamline inventory.

Using Analytics to Reshape the Store

Crafty Yankee found Retail Pro’s analytical capabilities exceptionally valuable in accomplishing this end. “By having good computer information, I can constantly reshape the store,”said Fields. “We must change with the customer: Patterns, age, tastes.” Retail Pro 9 gave Fields tools to analyze Crafty Yankee’s $1 million business by key segments. The store has been using Retail Pro 9 since 2012 and Fields credits the software with contributing to the store’s consistent, healthy growth despite a stagnant overall economy. Knowing what sells—and what doesn’t—is critical to every retailer and Crafty Yankee has adopted an analytical method with Retail Pro.   No guesswork here: “I like to analyze my business in lots of different segments. It’s important to me to start from the top. Let’s say we had a 20% increase last month. Where did that come from? Jewelry? Glass? Pottery? Once I see the trend in the data, I can break it down by vendor or resources. And I can compare that data to last year’s.”

A Technology Update that Made a Difference

None of that could have happened if Crafty Yankee had remained with its original retail management platform, CraftShop, which she started using in 1995. Much of the data was difficult to extract and it required quite a bit of manual work. “What I liked from the beginning with Retail Pro was that they saw what I had with the CraftShop system. It was pretty complicated,”said Fields.  Realizing she needed a more robust system, she started researching other software solutions, finally determining that Retail Pro was the best fit for her needs. “I have thousands of items and people would tell me, ‘You’re going to have to re-enter all that information.’And I said, ‘I don’t think so!’”

Targeted Growth that Enables Philanthropy

The Retail Pro platform, together with Fields’ business acumen, positioned her gift emporium for rapid, targeted growth. “I can learn about my business on any day of the week, as well as a specific date of business. I can compare Mother’s Day, Easter, wedding seasons.” I’m looking across the information in a lot of different ways: Top producers by vendor. Who is downtrending? Who is trending up? Our other system was just not as granular; jewelry for example, can be subcategorized. I can put more criteria in the system, which allows me to analyze each item,”Fields said. “We’ve been so successful because of the good computer information I can analyze. We are able to constantly reshape the store. If I hadn’t changed it, year after year, based on the information I get from the Retail Pro solution, the store would be out of business.” And what about the idea of giving back to the community? Crafty Yankee sells a number of items where most, if not all, of the purchasing price is donated to charity. Sometimes, retirement is overrated.

To learn more about Crafty Yankee, visit http://www.CraftyYankee.com.

To learn more about the Certified Retail Pro Business Partner supporting Crafty Yankee, JD Associates, visit http://www.jdapos.com/

This entry was posted by Jennifer Bosavage on Wednesday, February 11th, 2015 at 9:18 am .

Digital retail growth is slowing, but the key to pumping it up likely exists in the palm of customers’ hands.

Sucharita Mulpuru-Kodali, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester

How are consumers using mobile to engage with retailers?

Research and a research partner for the NRF’s State of Retailing Online recently noted that digital retail continues to be strong but growth rates appear to be slowing slightly. She noted that in recent years, many retailers experienced high double-digit growth; now, fewer retailers report that level of fast growth.

It’s important to remember that slower growth doesn’t mean no growth at all. It just means the rate is no longer at breakneck pace. And as e-commerce continues to nab a bigger piece of the retail pie, it will become more difficult to rack up huge percentage increases, although the amount of revenue will rise handsomely.

Still, how to grow those sales? Retailers should look for expanding existing avenues that are succeeding. And that means investing in mobile commerce.

Mobile shopping retail sales in the US were $70 billion in 2014, and Goldman Sachs Group predicts growth to $173 billion by the end of 2018. Goldman’s research found that nearly half of all smartphone users have used their phones to locate store information, such as location and working hours. Clearly, consumers are comfortable with the devices, so it makes sense for retailers to capitalize on that comfort zone, by inventing customers to use their mobile devices while they’re in the store. Wipe away fears of “showrooming” — that’s a thing of the past. The future lies in letting customers access all the information they need to make a decision while still in the store. It’s all about location, location, location for brick and mortars.

The potential growth comes from retailers working with and appealing to mobile phone users. While Forrester Research Inc. says 42% of the world will own a smartphone by the end of this year, research firm IDC notes that just 16% of enterprises have a mobile strategy. Retailers should look at ways to become more aggressive in reaching out to mobile consumers, as conversion rates are typically only 1% on smartphones compared with 3% on desktops. Too often, shoppers can’t find what they want on a mobile site, it’s too difficult to checkout, or service is just too slow.

By embracing mobile shopping within the confines of the physical store, brick and mortars may actually extend their reach. Consumers spend in-store time on their phones, comparing product information. Smart retailers are pushing product information of their own to shoppers’ phones as well, increasing the shopper/retailer connection. And enhancing that connection is key to a revenue uptick in 2015.

This entry was posted by Jennifer Bosavage on Monday, February 9th, 2015 at 9:15 pm .

Once upon a time, customers had very few options for mobile payments. Today, the technology is improving rapidly and options are growing. More than a quarter (27%) of consumers plan to use some form of mobile payment solution in the next year. Whether that type of payment will be through Apple Pay, Google Wallet or CurrentC — or through digital gift cards — remains to be seen. And a new player has arrived on the scene as well: Samsung’s LoopPay.

LoopPay is unique because it piggybacks on an older, pre-existing technology that virtually every retailer already has: the magnetic stripe. With LoopPay, a metallic coil generates a magnetic current that transmits to the magnetic strip card readers found in most modern payment terminals.In contrast, Apple Pay and Google Wallet are mobile payments services that depend on NFC hardware — the phone communicates wirelessly with the contactless payment terminal.

In adidition, digital gift cards are a large part of the overall mobile payment picture. eGift cards are emerging as part of retail’s payment and loyalty solutions. For example, Starbucks’ reloadable digital gift card acts as a brand’s own currency to add efficiency and reduce cost at the point of sale. But customers must be incented to participate is such programs, so they are rewarded with some of that savings in the form of loyalty points and discounts.

But those plastic cards may soon fade away, replaced by digital counterparts. eGift cards provide always-there access to the money stored on them. Research from eGifter found that 53% of consumers have reached for a plastic gift card only to realize it wasn’t on them when they were getting ready to pay for an item. That dynamic has contributed to more than $27 billion in gift cards going unused from 2007 through 2013, with another $1 billion

in spillage expected this year. While current gift card laws have reduced such spillage, mobile wallets are poised to further correct the problem. Digital gift cards are designed to work in tandem with digital wallets; however, when plastic cards are in the mix, 40 percent of consumers are willing to scan them into a digital wallet to be certain that they always have their cards when they need them.

As retailers implement mobile payment technology, consumers’ willingness to use a particular type or types of technology will determine which ones stores ultimately embrace.

This entry was posted by Jennifer Bosavage on Thursday, February 5th, 2015 at 9:21 pm .

Sales personalization is the hot topic for retailers this year. It’s all about making the customer feel special, catered to and favored. The strategy: Offer a Valentine to customers that will last far longer than Feb. 14. But with so many customers, and so much data, figuring out what each one wants from a retail shopping experience seems like a tremendous burden. If so, perhaps you’re not aiming properly.

When developing customer loyalty programs, retailers know they can’t take a one-size-fits-all approach to initiatives.

First, identify your Valentine. He or she should be a high-value shopper, someone who comes in semi-regularly but purchases more than just the clearance items. They are customers who you’d like to return more often, but don’t. But they would, if you made them an offer they couldn’t refuse. So analyze your customer data to identify that type of customer, and then ask if they’d like to opt-in to get special offers. Second, don’t ignore the customer who is loyal and has a substantial track record at your business. These are frequently people who spread the word about their favorite spots, and nothing beats word-of mouth advertising. These valuable shoppers are already loyal — shouldn’t they be rewarded for that? Again, your data knows who these satisfied customers are, and you can delight them even more by showing some appreciation. So, ask this group also to opt in Third, give your Valentine what they really want. Oh, but they just won’t come out and tell you? Beacon technology can help with that.  Beacon technology provider Swirl Networks recently released results from beacon marketing campaigns running in retail stores across North America. Swirl analyzed in-store campaign performance data from tens of thousands of shopper interactions and surveyed shoppers who received beacon-triggered messages during a three-month period. The survey found:

• 60 percent of shoppers open and engage with beacon-triggered content
• 30 percent of shoppers redeem beacon-triggered offers at the point of purchase
• 73 percent of shoppers surveyed said that beacon-triggered content and offers increased their likelihood to purchase during their store visit

Beacons offer retailers a way for retailers to understand and quantify what their customers want, and take the guesswork out. And, by asking customers to opt-in, they will feel like part of an exclusive offering, rather than the victim of an unscrupulous marketer. It’s up to the retailers to live up to their end of the bargain: In exchange for consumers’ personal data, businesses must provide valuable information at each touchpoint along the customer journey.

This entry was posted by Jennifer Bosavage on Monday, February 2nd, 2015 at 8:01 pm .

Payment fraud is on the rise, as mobile commerce continues to grow in popularity. According to LexisNexis Risk Solutions’ annual True Cost of Fraud mobile study, m-commerce retailers lost 70 percent more sales to fraud in 2014 than they did in 2013. As the number of smartphone users steadily increases — statista.com estimates that there will be more than 196 million smartphone users in the U.S. by 2016 — fraud will continue to threaten merchants.

Consumers also have privacy concerns about m-commerce.

The recent figures equate to m-commerce merchants losing 1.36 percent of revenue overall to fraud, which is a significantly higher percentage than the total retail segment, which lost 0.68 percent of sales to fraud. For the 15% of merchants accepting mCommerce payments in 2014, mobile transactions accounted for just 14% of the total transaction volume — and also for 21% of the volume of fraudulent transactions. Further the costs associated with mobile channel fraud are more than three times the initial losses. So, why are m-commerce seemingly more prone to such misfortune?

One reason is that m-commerce merchants offer more ways to pay. The average mobile commerce merchant has an average of 4.5 payment options for consumers, many more than the average 2.6 provided by all retailers. Mobile merchants, therefore, have more fraud exposure.

The burden is especially heavy because mobile fraud tracking is the responsibility of merchants, and currently it is tracked together with online fraud. Presently, there is no distinction between those two channels. The LexisNexis report suggests, however, that the two be tracked separately: “As the percentage of fraudulent mobile transactions among all fraud is disproportionate to the percentage of all mobile transactions, it is clear that mCommerce comes with additional risk compared to other payment channels. Only when a merchant is able to disaggregate data by fraud channel will it be able to know where fraud is moving and whether or not solutions are working.”

The report also suggests types of solutions that can be implemented to help mitigate the impact of fraud on m-commerce merchants, such as device identification and geolocation. Currently, use rates are low for such online and mobile-oriented fraud prevention solutions. In addition, many retailers can identify the type of fraud they’ve experienced as well as strong potential solutions, but fail to act appropriately on that knowledge: “mCommerce merchants consistently display a disconnect between the fraud they encounter and their awareness and use of solutions. In addition to the specific challenges of mobile transactions, mCommerce merchants experience a high proportion of international fraud, yet they are not likely to use the solutions they believe are most effective for preventing fraudulent internationally-originating transactions.”

Still, the future is not entirely bleak. The researchers found that nearly half of this surveyed (48%) believe that adopting mobile payments is necessary to stay competitive, more than 1 in 3 (36%) plan on investing in this technology to increase efficiency and savings, and more than 1 in 4 (26%) plan on training employees on mobile payment technology.

This entry was posted by Jennifer Bosavage on Saturday, January 31st, 2015 at 6:41 pm .

Remember “anonymized” data? The kind retail customers felt OK about sharing, because it couldn’t be tracked back to a specific individual? Turns out, according to the very bright folks at MIT, that anonymized is quite different from anonymous.

Current guidelines aren’t strong enough to help companies keep credit card data secure.

Researchers at MIT studied three months of credit card records for 1.1 million people, and the results were published today in the journal Science. For 40% of people, it took only two data points, without price information, to identify a customer. Five data points was enough to ID virtually everyone.

The ability to preserve anonymity in large data sets is important, because aggregated digital data can be a rich source of customer insights. Retailers analyzing anonymized credit-card histories could learn about customer tastes, trend information, seasonal variations and even weekly shopping rhythms. But re-identification is dangerous, and it will make customers less willing to give up any personal information and more likely to pay with cash.

What about coarsening the data, making it intentionally vague? The MIT researchers examined the effects of attempting to maintain privacy while still obtaining some useful analysis. The results were not encouraging. According to MIT News: “Even if the data set characterized each purchase as having taken place sometime in the span of a week at one of 150 stores in the same general areas, four purchases (with 50 percent uncertainty about price) would still be enough to identify more than 70 percent of users.” Therefore, a data set’s lack of names, home addresses, phone numbers or other obvious identifiers does not make it safe to release publicly.

Credit card data has great potential for retailers and should be gathered, but care must be taken to avoid re-identification. But the study does highlight the standard methods many companies use to anonymize their records. And it will certainly add fuel to the fire of those concerned about the consumer-tracking processes employed by advertising software and analytics companies.

This entry was posted by Jennifer Bosavage on Thursday, January 29th, 2015 at 8:03 pm .

NEW YORK – In a hyper-competitive New York City apparel market, retailer OMG Jeans has been a mainstay along the Manhattan Broadway district utilizing Retail Pro as their retail management solution across three decades to grow from a single store in 1998 to a local mid-sized retail chain today. After opening dozens of stores, OMG Jeans has found Retail Pro’s flexible deployment options invaluable, particularly the thin-client capabilities delivered with Retail Pro 9. Attracted by Prism’s ultra-flexible and fast deployment options and its cross-platform capabilities, OMG Jeans became one of Prism’s earliest adopters, finding themselves impressed with the new platform’s stability, ease of implementation, lightweight design and intuitive user interface.

In 2012, OMG Jeans shifted their retail strategy to portfolio diversification and market expansion by introducing a luxury sunglass kiosk within their stores. The new offering turned out to be very successful across multiple locations. The market for luxury sunglasses is a surprisingly uncompetitive niche, and after evaluating the market, OMG Jeans’ leadership decided to craft a standalone brand, Specs, to capture market share along the East Coast sector. Specs further secured its position by finalizing a deal to become an authorized reseller of Luxottica designer brands, which gave them access to over 20 of the world’s most recognizable luxury eyewear brands, such as Ray-Ban, Coach, DKNY and  Giorgio Armani.

The first Specs store opened in January 2014 to an encouraging market response, but with a few additional challenges as well. Although Specs’ leadership team was very familiar with Retail Pro, miscommunication with a business partner led them to believe to that another retail management system, Lightspeed, was required for use by all Luxottica resellers.  As Specs’ relationship with Luxottica comprised a core value offering for their business, upon launching, the new brand aimed to maintain symbiosis with its primary reseller by implementing Lightspeed.

Not long after implementation, Specs soon encountered issues with Lightspeed’s inability to be flexible and adapt to their business workflows. After learning that the perceived stipulation was indeed a misunderstanding, Specs quickly transitioned back to Retail Pro, implementing combinations of Retail Pro 9 and Retail Pro Prism, realizing that several of the platform’s key attributes, in addition to the store operators’ familiarity with the software, positioned them to scale the brand rapidly.

Retail Pro’s choice of database and cross-platform capabilities shined especially in this regard. Retail Pro’s flexible database options let Specs configure instances of MySQL and Oracle databases in various combinations, allowing them to tailor future implementations to a new store’s individual hardware requirements and preferences.  Retail Pro Prism’s cross-platform capabilities also gave Specs the freedom to deploy Retail Pro smoothly across all-in-one desktops, as well as iPad & Android tablets with no loss in functionality or change in workflow. The glaring, untapped market space in the luxury eyewear market, combined with the ability to stabilize Specs’ operations and workflows using Retail Pro, gave Specs the confidence to capitalize on a unique opportunity to scale its new brand aggressively. Between January and October 2014, Specs opened an impressive 7 new stores in 3 regions along the East Coast: New York, Maryland, and Washington DC.

“After returning to Retail Pro, we were truly able to appreciate the value of being able to easily tailor a workflow to your needs,” explained Joe Bahar, Head of IT at Specs. “Just as well, Retail Pro has always been easy to train new associates on, but now with Prism, the interface is even more intuitive and works across platforms, so that now we can train new employees on multiple devices in a really short time. Basically this gives us the freedom to add employees or devices at whatever rate we choose, which is critical at our stage of buisness. Retail Pro has always been easy for us to install and implement, but now being able to rely on it to scale Specs exactly the way we want to is both extremely promising and very refreshing.”

This entry was posted by Ulyana Avetisov on Tuesday, January 27th, 2015 at 12:47 pm .

Omnichannel retailers will have their work cut out for them in 2015, as they attempt to entice shoppers with both their web and brick and mortar presence in order to compete effectively against online-only stores.

A recent study by Wipro found that when consumers browse online and in a store, many opt to ultimately make the purchase online: 34% of U.K. consumers and 33% of U.S. consumers reported purchasing in that manner.

‘There is no doubt consumers are interacting with brands across both the online and in-store channels,” said Avinash Rao, Global Head, Wipro Digital. “But omnichannel retailers are missing a big opportunity to capture the 1/3 of consumers who say they are researching in store but leave to buy online.”

Indeed, online shopping this past holiday season continued to grow in popularity and accessibility, with 71% of surveyed consumers in U.K., and 61% in U.S., reported they did more than half their 2014 holiday shopping online. That is a major uptick from 2013, when just 45% in U.K. and 36% in U.S. reported doing the majority of their shopping online.

The online shopping trend is being driven by three factors: greater convenience, better prices and ease of use. Online pure play retailers are the big winners of this shift: 44% of U.K.  and 47% of U.S. shoppers report doing more than half their online shopping on such sites. What should concern brick and mortar retailers is the finding that a quarter of the shoppers are not even considering bricks and mortar retailers’ websites.

Sounds like retailers need to leverage the one thing they have that those pure play online stores do not: location, location, location.

“Omnichannel retailers need to invest more in understanding and improving the customer experience journey to entice shoppers to spend more with them in-store,” said Rao. “Customer journey engineering as an approach to understanding, designing and delivering relevant and differentiated customer experiences across all channels and touch points will help retailers reverse the trend and avoid a future when consumers are no longer visiting their stores.”

Competitive pressures can be a motivating force to drive retailers to provide a differentiated shopping experience. Ecommerce retailers understand how customers want to shop online and deliver that experience well; brick and mortars need to learn what drives customers to buy from them, and capitalize on those strengths. Further, if retailers can determine the source of dissatisfaction and not just fix it, but turn it around into an enjoyable experience, that can turn consumer indifference into delight.

This entry was posted by Jennifer Bosavage on Monday, January 26th, 2015 at 10:02 pm .

January always feels like a fresh start, like turning to a new page in a notebook.  After the rush and bustle of the holidays, it is a time to reflect and set resolutions to help you achieve your business goals.

Did you know that 45% of people make New Year’s resolutions but only 8% of them follow through?  According to a recent study published by the Journal of Clinical Psychology, the top two resolutions (after losing weight and getting in shape) involve getting more organized and making better financial decisions.  47% of survey participants indicated that their resolutions were related to self-improvement and education.

Learn to Get the Most Out of Your Retail Pro with Retail Pro University

At Retail Pro University, we want to help you succeed in the self-improvement and education resolutions you set for your business.

You have probably heard that your Retail Pro is a valuable tool to maximize productivity and enhance the shopper experience. But even the best tool can’t help if you don’t align its capabilities to your needs and strategies.

Retail Pro University’s comprehensive training classes teach you to tap into Retail Pro’s potential, so you can get the most out of your Retail Pro.

Retail Pro University’s Flexible Learning Options

Live, in-person classes are held every month at our offices located near Sacramento, California.  In just two weeks, you and your employees can be fully certified in three different programs: the applications expert, the systems engineer, and the reports professional.

We can also bring our training to you with a two-week course held at your office.  Save time and money by training your entire staff at the same time.  Call or email us to find out about custom training solutions.

People who explicitly make New Year’s resolutions are 10 times more likely to attain their goals than those who don’t explicitly make resolutions.  If your goals include using your Retail Pro to increase efficiency as you grow your business, let us show you how a Retail Pro education can help you accomplish your resolutions.

Make 2015 the year you invest in being more productive and educated, so you can improve your business operations with a Retail Pro University training.

Tell us what you would like to learn this year with Retail Pro University!

This entry was posted by Ulyana Avetisov on Monday, January 26th, 2015 at 10:37 am .