Archive for the ‘retail’ Category
Online Retailer LabelSneak Leverages IBM Smarter Commerce Technologies To Glean Mobile/Social Insights, Bolster Sales
LabelSneak teamed with IBM and IBM Business Partner CSI Solution to connect with the growing marketplace of consumers who prefer to buy across online, mobile and social channels. IBM Smarter Commerce precision marketing is allowing consumers to choose which sales promotions they want to be alerted to or when their favorite clothing item goes on sale via text, tweet, Facebook post or email. This can be a more effective sales method as smaller retailers can deliver a level of personalization and a more tailored marketing campaign to the individual consumer.
There’s some new news on the Smarter Commerce front from IBM.
Earlier today, IBM announced a collaboration with LabelSneak, a small online retailer of discounted designer men’s wear, which is using IBM Smarter Commerce technologies to create a unique shopping experience aimed at the millennial consumer.
As a result, LabelSneak has seen 148 percent growth in revenues, tripling sales in less than a year.
For The Fashion Conscious Male
LabelSneak is an outlet store aimed at brand aware males, and offers discounts of up to 75 percent on fashion and sportswear, alerting its consumers via social channels to personalized, limited-time sales offers.
With new deals updated regularly, the site generates tremendous amounts of data, including Tweets, Instagram photos, Facebook comments on popular sales items and conversations between consumers on favorite brands through social channels, mobile and tablet devices.
LabelSneak’s challenge was this: To capture and glean insights from all this big data to better understand what consumers were saying about the latest promotions, which items were the most popular and at what time and in what circumstances sales were most effective.
They also needed analytics to better target and mold online sales campaigns and to decide which social channels effectively communicated its message to attract new customers.
LabelSneak teamed with IBM and IBM Business Partner CSI Solution to connect with the growing marketplace of consumers who prefer to buy across online, mobile and social channels.
With access to IBM Global Financing within minutes, the small retailer is now using IBM Smarter Commerce technology to handle high volumes of transactions as well as the large volumes and variety of data, CSI’s RapidCommerce Cloud Managed Service Solution has helped LabelSneak create a site to more effectively target the digitally savvy millennial consumer with an integrated brand experience across all devices.
To date, the platform is supporting a rapid pace of growth, enabling the client to focus its time and resources on growing the business such as conducting sales promotions, gleaning insights from Facebook comments or tweets.
The Competitive Challenge
Fashion companies of every size and style are vying for a slice of the men’s wear market. To compete with more established retailer brands, LabelSneak needed to better understand men’s online consumer behavior, create a more tailored marketing campaign and deliver the right merchandising mix.
Not only is LabelSneak gleaning insights from data analyzing which brands to carry, but they also are seeing how consumer preferences for certain brands in men’s wear are connected to a favorite sports teams or music.
Background On IBM Smarter Commerce
IBM Smarter Commerce precision marketing is allowing consumers to choose which sales promotions they want to be alerted to or when their favorite clothing item goes on sale via text, tweet, Facebook post or email.
This can be a more effective sales method as smaller retailers can deliver a level of personalization and a more tailored marketing campaign to the individual consumer.
IBM Smarter Commerce provides intelligent automation of marketing, sales, customer service and procurement to help chief marketing officers, chief procurement officers, sales, e-commerce, supply chain and customer service executives do their jobs more productively and efficiently.
Go here if you’d like to do some shopping on LabelSneak.
Not Back In Davos
It’s that time of the year.
The year when all the smart, rich, famous and well-connected show up in Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum.
I’m sure it’s nothing personal, but once again for as many years as I care to remember, my invitation never showed.
That’s okay, as things are pretty busy around here as we get off to a fast start in 2013.
However, I did really enjoy Alison Smale’s big picture set up piece for Davos this in The New York Time’s DealBook.
And if I were in attendance, that’s the type view I would be eagerly seeking — What are the general macroindicators and movements that smart peeps think are going to shape the year?
Some will be currents we can’t yet see, and as Smale observes, “Our footing is uncertain, as on this ski resort’s slithery streets, and we have steep slopes to climb, as the Magic Mountain will remind the global elite this week.”
Troubles in north Africa, the challenge of free information in China, anemic growth in Germany, the averted fiscal cliff but once again looming U.S. debt ceiling…”Crisis, in short,” writes Smale, “is the new normal.”
Speaking of Germany, also increasingly normal is the threat of cyber intrusion, according to a panel at the DLD conference ending today in Munich.
In coverage by Frederic Larinois from TechCrunch of Eugene Kaspersky, founder of Kaspersky Lab, the Internet security firm, and F-Secure’s chief research officer, Mikko Hypponen, it became readily apparent that cyber intrusion sophistication is reaching new levels.
Kaspersky spoke of recent cyber attacks like Stuxnet and Red October, suggesting such efforts have reached the equivalent of the “space station” in terms of their sophistication and impact, while Hypponen said the “happy hacker” of the 80s and 90s was long, and that instead “we now have to deal with criminals who try to make money from their malware and botnets, hacktivists who try to protest and governments attacking their own citizens and other governments for espionage and full-scale cyber warfare.”
The cyber genie, in other words, is well out of the virtual bottle.
So, let’s forget about all these woes for a few, shall we, and go shopping instead?
IBM’s new study of 26,000 global consumers will be coming out soon, and the early skinny has it revealing some interesting insights, including the fact that 35 percent of shoppers are unsure whether they would next shop at a store or online.
Talk about a confused consumer!
It also revealed that nearly half of online purchases result from “showrooming,” a growing trend whereby consumers browse goods at a store, but ultimately buy them online.
You’ve done that before, haven’t you? You just didn’t know there was a fancy name for it!
Ultimately, consumers are seeking an integrated shopping experience. So, in response, retailers need to connect their online and physical stores, blending the benefits of each — from research to purchase to building brand loyalty, to that ultimate golden chalice of retail, repeat sales.
IBM is helping through its analytics capabilities, helping retailers measure sales metrics across digital channels to spot consumer buying patterns and visualizing product display, promotions, and even coupons in new ways.
Visit the IBM Smarter Retail web site to learn how your organization can create an integrated shopping experience.
Me, I’ve got to run down to the Amazon store for some new typewriter ribbons. 
Every Kiss Begins With Kay
IBM and Signet Jewelers Ltd., the largest specialty retail jeweler in the U.S. and U.K., have worked together on a major e-commerce strategy and digital marketing redesign for Signet’s national U.S. store chains, Kay Jewelers and Jared, the Galleria of Jewelry.
This week the retail gurus of the world have been hobnobbing at the Jacob Javitts center in New York City as part of the National Retail Federation’s annual gathering.
So I thought it an appropriate opportunity to highlight a retail partnership between IBM and Signet Jewelers Ltd., the largest specialty retail jeweler in the U.S. and U.K..
IBM and Signet have worked together on a major e-commerce strategy and digital marketing redesign for Signet’s national U.S. store chains, Kay Jewelers and Jared the Galleria of Jewelry.
Building A Multichannel Strategy
The initiative has transformed the multichannel experience for Kay and Jared customers and resulted in consistent sales growth, including a year-over-year increase of 49 percent in online sales as reported in the company’s recently announced holiday sales for fiscal 2013.
To advance its existing multichannel retail strategy and supplement its e-commerce and information technology expertise, Signet Jewelers U.S. Division engaged consultants from IBM Global Business Services and its digital consulting and design practice, IBM Interactive.
IBM and Signet U.S. collaborated to develop a unified strategy for delivering a more consistent, branded and personalized customer experience to Kay and Jared customers everywhere they shop — whether in a physical store, online or via mobile.
Key components of the multi-phased strategy include the launch of new transactional mobile sites, which enable customers to shop and purchase Kay and Jared products from their mobile phones, and a redesign of the Kay.com and Jared.com websites, which went live before the busy holiday shopping season.
The new sites combine best practices in optimized navigation and functionality, making it easier for shoppers to find, compare and purchase products online, along with new custom features that deliver a more guided, personalized shopping experience for which the company is known.
For instance, shoppers can now chat live with a customer service representative, compare product details side-by-side to help determine their selection, track recently viewed items and much more.
Mi amigo Paul Papas, IBM’s Smarter Commerce Global Leader for Global Business Services, had this to say about the partnership:
“Much of Signet Jeweler’s success in building Kay and Jared into two of the most trusted retail brands can be attributed to the expertise and superior customer service they deliver to create a world-class shopping experience. In an industry known for being married to tradition, Signet Jewelers is a shining example of how bricks and mortar retailers are redefining the customer experience and embracing digital channels, like mobile and social, as part of their overall strategy to deliver personalized interactions to their customers at every touch point.”
Behind the Redesign
Initially starting with tactical enhancements to the Kay.com and Jared.com websites in late 2011, Signet U.S. launched complete redesigns of both sites in October 2012.
Signet introduced new mobile sites for each brand with transactional capabilities in mid-November.
The company has also launched a mobile app available on iTunes and the Android Market and introduced catalogs on the Google Catalogs app to tap into the growing population of mobile shoppers.
To elevate Signet’s social media presence, the company worked with IBM to define an engagement strategy, which Signet U.S. has begun implementing by launching a social media presence for Kay and Jared.
Each brand platform is focused on engaging consumers in the spaces that are most relevant to them, like Facebook and Twitter, to develop and sustain relationships, build loyalty and foster brand advocates who shop both in-store and online.
To help define Signet’s e-commerce strategy and roadmap, IBM executed research that included a customer segmentation analysis, voice of the customer surveys and in-store observations.
With deeper insights into customer needs and distinct shopping scenarios, as well as the capabilities required to support them online, Signet U.S. was able to deploy an integrated solution that extends the Kay and Jared in-store shopping experience to the web and mobile platforms.
About Signet Jewelers Ltd
Signet Jewelers is the largest specialty retail jeweler in the US and UK. Signet’s US division operates more than 1,325 stores in all 50 states primarily under the name brands of Kay Jewelers and Jared The Galleria Of Jewelry. Signet’s UK division operates more than 500 stores primarily under the name brands of H.Samuel and Ernest Jones.
Go here for more information about IBM Smarter Commerce and here for more information in specific about IBM’s Retail expertise.
Holiday Shopping Chatter
If you’re interested in gaining some insights into the upcoming holiday retail madness, you need to mark your calendar.
This coming Monday, November 19th, the IBM Smarter Commerce team, in partnership with Direct Marketing News, will host a Twitter chat.
Featuring IBM’s holiday retail analytics prognosticator, Jay Henderson, IBM’s Enterprise Marketing Management Global Strategy Program Director, and Richard Feinberg, Purdue University’s Professor of Consumer Sciences and Retailing, the Twitter Chat will be held Monday from 1:00-2:00 PM EST via the #smartershopping hash tag.
Allison Schiff, web editor for Direct Marketing news, will moderate from the @DMNews handle.
The topic? Key retail holiday trends, ranging from online sales to mobile and social trends, which Jay has already predicted will become even more dominant this holiday shopping season.
No need to line up outside your Apple store, or navigate the mobs at your local Wal-Mart.
Just open up your favorite Twitter client and follow the online retail mob into the far reaches of all things holiday shopping.
Jay’s already pulled out and dusted off his holiday shopping crystal ball in a post for the IBM “Building a Smarter Planet” blog.
In it, Jay posed some key questions we might just expect to get some answers for in the coming chat, such as whether or not mobile shoppers will continue take the lead this holiday season, and whether or not they’ll expand their use of social media.
Jay also mentioned that the latest IBM Retail Online Index for Q3 showed renewed growth with overall online sales increasing by 3.1 percent over the second quarter.
But to keep those numbers growing, Jay writes that consumers will expect personalized shopping and tailored promotions this holiday season, and those retailers “who can deliver an easy, integrated and personalized shopping experience both in-store and online” will be the ones who cash in on holiday cheer this year.
Follow the conversation Monday starting at 1:00 PM EST at #smartershopping
As a prelude, check out my interview with Jay at IBM’s recent Smarter Commerce Summit in Orlando, Florida, where Jay explained how marketing is in chaos and some of the course corrections retailers can make to adapt to this rapidly-changing consumer-centric world.
Showrooming With Santa
ON the topic of Smarter Commerce, I’ve seen two stories today….count ‘em, TWO…about the intent for numerous retailers promising to match online retail prices at brick-n-mortar stores during the coming holiday season.
Found that Tickle Me Elmo for ten whole cents cheaper at Amazon???…just step right on up the Target cash register, because the Price is Right!
One of the stories was in The Wall Street Journal, and claimed that over the past few days, Best Buy and Target both had said they would match the prices offered by the online sites of some rivals, including Wal-Mart and Amazon.
This in an effort to combat “showrooming” (bet you didn’t even know there was such a word!), whereby shoppers checking products in stores then buy them on competitor’s websites, presumably for lower prices.
But, as the story goes on to observe, there soon could be trouble at the register, as these new policies require shoppers to both ask for and PROVE the existence of lowered prices.
“Mommy, Mommy, I just found the latest Furby on Amazon.com for a whole fifty cents less!”
Now, excuse Mommy while she fumbles around in her purse for her smartphone! Oh, never mind that line of people waiting around the store to pay full price for their Furbys!
You get the picture.
According to the Journal story, Best Buy’s going to go them one better, and provide their sales reps some discretion — if the SKU’s price is too low, you don’t get to go!…out the store with your Furby, that is.
All the more reason, I say, to stay in this holiday season, tablet or laptop in hand, with a nice warm cup of Egg Nog, and do ALL your holiday shopping from the comfort of your own home!
REAL Coupons
Anybody watch the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games from London?
I don’t know about you, but I rather enjoyed them, in a British humor sort of way.
The testament to the National Health Service was a bit out of left field, but Danny Boyles made even that fun.
As for the image of the Queen skydiving with James Bond (aka Daniel Craig) into Olympic Stadium…well, cue the Bond theme, and shake up a martini, please, Miss Moneypenny, as that was a surprise indeed!
Across the English Channel and a bit further east, IBM recently partnered with major German retail hypermarket chain, REAL, to bring about its own recent surprise.
IBM and REAL have partnered to launch a new electronic coupon system throughout REAL’s 320 German stores, a first-of-its-kind digital coupon system developed with IBM Research to enable consumers to use their mobile phones to find and redeem e-coupons as they shop in stores.
This new capability delivers a convenient and personalized service to shoppers, even if they forgot their paper coupons back at home.
The REAL Deal
REAL hypermarkets sell about 80,000 different items, from food to electrical appliances to clothing, and already were conducting the largest coupon program in Germany through the company’s “Payback” program.
In fact, REAL cites customer loyalty programs like Payback as an important part of their business strategy in the highly competitive German retail market.
The REAL coupon program enables in-store Payback members to use their mobile phones to browse online coupons as they walk through the aisles. Shoppers can choose their favorite coupons from the REAL homepage or a Payback app on their smartphones.
In a maximum of 500 milliseconds, the system confirms their choice and transfers an eCoupon to the store’s “3V – Value Voucher Validation” coupon system in real time.
To redeem the eCoupon, customers then display their Payback membership card upon check-out and the transaction is automatically processed.
Consumer Checkout
For REAL, this new electronic system offers a more personalized view of customers and the option to change coupon distribution in real time. Promotions can respond more flexibly to seasonal changes or fashion fads to appeal to ever-changing consumer tastes.
“In essence, we are simplifying and improving the coupon redemption process,” explained Bernd Hasenbank, Head of Point of Sale Solutions at REAL.
REAL expects that it will be receiving several hundred thousand eCoupon queries and eCoupon redemptions per day at the cash registers of it 320 stores. That is not an easy task for the underlying information technology (IT) architecture with a central server.
The new 3V coupon system at REAL is based on existing IBM solutions at METRO Group, which are compliant with the EPC Information Services Standard (EPCIS) of EPCglobal. The system is based on IBM InfoSphere Traceability Server, a high-performance data storage device, that is able to manage and analyze large amounts of data, integrate master data systems and provide data in real-time for internal and external applications.
If you’d like to learn more about IBM Smarter Commerce solutions, go here, and don’t forget the upcoming Smarter Commerce Summit to be held in Orlando, Florida, September 5-7. You can learn more about and register for that event here.
Scanning For Deals
A sample IBM self-checkout system. In partnership with Honeywell, a new smartphone application will let shoppers scan items as they move through the store, then check out themselves using a similar IBM self-checkout system.
One of my first jobs in school was bagging groceries at a local grocery store. The irony was, it was one of those grocery stories where you were supposed to sack your own groceries, and, presumably, save some money doing so.
But the store was so popular when it first opened that it had its store assistants sack groceries to help move the lines along.
Those were the days when they didn’t have the fancy scanners — everything was still checked by hand.
So when I saw this announcement this morning IBM made that allows consumers to scan items as they move through the store, all I could think about was the Jetsons.
This new retail technology not only allows consumers to scan items with their mobile phones as they move about the store, it then lets them check themselves out at an IBM self-checkout station (yes, those exist today, but not with technology that allows consumers to scan the items as they’re shopping!)
Designed to help retailers provide a more customized in-store shopping experience for smart phone shoppers, the IBM Mobile Shopper application incorporates Honeywell mobile scanning technology capable of scanning virtually any bar code, no matter what background it is printed on, the direction it faces, or the packaging covering it.
The solution currently runs on the Google Android and Apple iOS operating systems.
According to a recent IBM Institute of Business Value study, self checkout is the preferred way to shop for most consumers today, and they are very specific about the way they want to use mobile technology while shopping.
More than 50 percent say they want to use a mobile device to scan while shopping, and to do final checkout at a self-checkout station. More than 40 percent want to scan samples and retrieve shopping items for pickup, or have the items delivered directly to their homes.
“Retailers can now deliver a more personalized shopping experience that is less of a chore and more of a convenience for consumers,” says John Gaydac, vice president, IBM Retail Store Solutions. “By enabling consumers to scan and check-out a wide variety of products at their own pace, retailers can not only create a more customized shopping environment, but also increase in-store traffic.”
The new mobile phone application is powered by IBM ACE Store Integrator software and the newest release of IBM Self-Checkout software, which provides shoppers the same access to digital coupons, loyalty programs and special promotions at self-checkout stations that is traditionally available at fully-staffed point-of-sale checkout lanes.
The IBM Mobile Shopper, or “digital shopping assistant,” incorporates Honeywell’s high-performance SwiftDecoder Mobile bar code decoding software, one of many patented technologies that have helped secure the company’s leadership in camera-based bar code decoding. Among them is the practice of decoding bar code-related information from a real-time video image, such as the display of a smart phone or other mobile device (U.S. patent 6,015,088).
The IBM Mobile Shopper solution with Honeywell mobile scanning is available immediately.
IBM Helps U.K. Retailer Marks & Spencer In Digital Multi-Channel Evolution
If you’ve ever gone shopping in the U.K. (And perhaps even if you haven’t), then you’re well aware of U.K. Retailer Marks & Spencer.
World renowned U.K. retailer Marks & Spencer (M&S) is using IBM software for Smarter Commerce to transform its Web site into a global marketplace where customers can seamlessly shop from any country, device or channel regardless of whether they are calling, viewing, surfing or walking in from the street.
M&S has recently partnered with IBM to improve its online shopping experience. Specifically, M&S is now using IBM software for Smarter Commerce to transform its Web site into a global marketplace where customers can seamlessly shop from any country, device or channel regardless of whether they are calling, viewing, surfing, or walking in from the street.
Now that, my friends, is a true multichannel retail experience.
Here’s how it works: The IBM software provides integrated purchasing, order management and customer service capabilities across all of M&S’ sales channels. This helps them capitalize on the growth of mobile, social, and multi-channel purchasing by customers in the digital age.
They hope to appeal to these increasingly online audiences domestically and establish a global customer base for its online store.
With 64 percent of consumers making a first purchase because of a digital experience, it’s critical that retailers understand this online behavior and refine their marketing and ecommerce activities appropriately.
M&S aims to become the U.K.’s leading multi-channel retailer, growing sales to between 800 million pounds Sterling – 1 billion pounds by 2013/2014, up from 543 million pounds in 2010/2011.
But M&S needed to capture its customers’ behavior accurately in order to be able to personalize its communications with them and to provide the same level of service to shoppers, regardless of their mode or channel of interaction.
M&S selected IBM Sterling Order Management for its ability to provide inventory visibility across all channels and for its transaction scalability needed to meet seasonal requirements.
M&S also chose IBM WebSphere Commerce, for its comprehensive personalization capabilities and because it can be deployed worldwide in different ways across all sites to serve different brands, regions or targeted groups of customers.
“The explosion of personalized data now accessible to consumers through social media, online and mobile interactions is causing fundamental changes in the way retailers operate,” said David Hogg, commerce solutions lead, IBM.
“It requires a new approach — which IBM calls Smarter Commerce – that puts the customer at the center of its business. With the new software now in place, M&S can take action based on a consistent view of a customer’s order across any of the sales channels they have chosen. In this way, customers can continue to enjoy the high levels of service they have come to expect from this major U.K. retailer, while M&S can expand its business by increasing sales worldwide.”
IBM’s Smarter Commerce initiatives draw on its market-leading WebSphere Commerce platform and a $2.5 billion investment in on-premise and cloud-based software from IBM’s acquisitions of Sterling Commerce, Unica and Coremetrics.
And IBM Global Business Services is expanding its consulting and solutions capabilities with 1,200 dedicated practitioners for Smarter Commerce. Over 2,000 of the world’s top brands rely on IBM to help improve their brand and marketing execution.
Go here to get more information on IBM Smarter Commerce solutions.
turbotodd
