The Retail Blog

When it comes to tablet deployment, it’s no longer a question of if, but when for many retailers. In the past week, I spoke with three retailers that have recently deployed POS solutions on Apple’s iPad to learn what they would tell those considering a similar move. Here are their five tips for retailers ready to move to the iPad.

Email marketing is a powerful channel for brick-and-mortar retailers looking to notify customers about promotions, deals and store announcements. How are effective retailers ensuring their email marketing campaigns are successful? Retailers, I’d like your help. Please take a moment to complete this short survey!

Best Buy is beginning what will surely be a long, painful transformation. Frankly, I’m not surprised by Best Buy’s troubles. Visiting their stores, I’ve been frustrated with the associates–who often appear more interested in selling me a warranty than solving my problem. But are the individuals to blame?

The primary marketing channel for many local retailers is their website, and ensuring that it’s well-designed, contains useful information and is easily discoverable are essential components to connecting with local shoppers. I’ve put together this checklist for to use when evaluating your retail website.

It’s easy to understand why every retailer wanted a Facebook storefront. Retailers would be hard-pressed to find a larger customer base in one place. However, several major retailers have recently closed their storefronts due to lack of success. Here’s how Facebook could create a strong(er) referral-traffic commerce model.

New start-ups are launching every day that change how consumers buy and how merchants sell. While most of us know Facebook, Foursquare and Groupon, I’ve put together a list of the six new companies that I’m most excited about. I’d also like your feedback. Which company do you feel has the greatest chance to impact retail?

Resale is one of the more unique industries within retail. Websites such as eBay and Craigslist have helped reshape the image of second-hand goods, and consignment and thrift shops have benefited greatly. Still, navigating around the peculiarities of managing a resale store can be tricky.

Retailers can–and should–play a role in driving consumer adoption of mobile payments, and retailers should act now rather than later. Retailers need to understand the technology and implications of mobile payments to avoid being caught flat-footed. Here are some answers to questions retailers frequently ask to get you started.

The price and convenience wars are over. With only a few exceptions, for brick-and-mortars to compete with e-tailers on price and convenience is futile. The success of independent retailers now hinges on how well they can offer a shopping experience that online retailers cannot duplicate. The question is, How?

Retailers must broaden the definition of POS from simple transaction processing to include customer data collection for future retail success. To help guide retailers’ software selection, here are three areas of functionality retailers should consider when evaluating their future software needs.