Industry News
02 September 2010
One-Third of New York Grocery Store Price Scanners Fail
Nearly one-third of checkout price scanners in New York City grocery stores are inaccurate. That’s one of the findings reported this month (August 18) by the city’s Department of Consumer Affairs after a year-long inspection sweep of supermarkets. The bad scanners were in grocery stores ranging from small independents to major chains, although ironically the smallest convenience stores–what New Yorkers call “bodegas”–actually had fewer problems than full-service grocery stores.
Sometimes it’s hard for IT to demonstrate cost and value to retailers in hard dollars. This isn’t one of those times. A faulty scanner costs money when it’s caught by a city inspector–as much as $700 per scanner. That’s on top of fixing the scanner and whatever extra time is required when checkers have to key in prices by hand.
The bad scanners were the second-most-common reason for the stores being fined, after items that didn’t have price tags, according to a Department of Consumer Affairs spokesperson.
But the high failure rate for price scanners is something to worry about. It suggests one of two things: Either supermarket IT departments are intentionally deferring maintenance on price-scanning equipment or it simply doesn’t occur to IT that these devices need regular checking.
With most retail technology, failures are just an internal problem for the retailer. If kiosks don’t work or theft-prevention scanners fail, employees generally end up handling the problems and smoothing out the shortcomings of the technology.
For the full article from Storefront Backtalk, click here.
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01 September 2010
Apps Give You Loyalty Card Prices Without the Loyalty Cards
All those loyalty cards you have dangling off your keychain or plumping your wallet? Gone. In their place, smartphone users will have free apps like Key Ring or Cardstar on their cellphones.
nd if you’re the type who likes to search for bargains and clip coupons in the Sunday circular, these apps throw you a high-tech bone. Starting this week, Cardstar and Key Ring will include such things inside the app itself, so you can tap a button and have a coupon delivered to your cellphone.
No snipping, no ink-stained hands. No worries about leaving the coupons behind on the kitchen counter.
There are a few bumps along the way to this shopping utopia, and we’ll get to those in a minute. But as more supermarkets join the trend — as seems almost certain — and as the software developers fix some minor flaws, these apps could become essential to shopping.
For the Full article from the New York Times, click here.
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31 August 2010
Back-to-School Shopping Bust Heralds Holiday Woes
In an ominous sign for the holiday shopping season, American consumers behaved like skinflints in August, focusing on bare necessities and budget-priced deals as they made back-to-school purchases.
Shoppers spent slightly more last month than they had the year before, according to MasterCard Advisors, which crunches data from credit cards, checks and cash payments to form sales estimates. But in nearly every category, the sales numbers were far short of 2008 levels, indicating the economic recovery remains sluggish.
Indeed, an index of consumer confidence released Tuesday by the Conference Board, a private research group, rose just 2.5 points in August, to 53.5.
"Expectations about future business and labor-market conditions have brightened somewhat, but overall, consumers remain apprehensive about the future," said Lynn Franco, director of the group's Consumer Research Center. "All in all, consumers are about as confident today as they were a year ago."
For the full article from the Wall Street Journal, click here.
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30 August 2010
Shoppers Stick to Payday-Spending Habits
Consumer-products makers continue to see shoppers stock up on necessities around payday, a sign that some of the frugal habits consumers picked up in the recession linger.
The so-called "paycheck cycle"—where shoppers make purchases in tandem with salary checks or government payouts and then pull back on spending as they run out—became more prevalent at the height of the recession. But many consumers are stubbornly sticking to that buying pattern even as the economy improves.
Unilever NV said it continues to see a sales jump in the first week of the month in the U.S., with brands like its lower-priced Suave shampoo, and kitchen staples Skippy peanut butter and Ragu sauces getting some of the biggest lifts as paychecks are cashed.
"A lot of people are still truly living paycheck to paycheck," said Lisa Klauser, vice president for consumer and customer solutions at Unilever North America.
Consumers typically shop close to payday, but the paycheck cycle "heightened during the recession, and it's one of the behaviors we would now call the new normal," said Ms. Klauser.
Finding ways to appeal to frugal Americans has turned into one of the biggest challenges for consumer companies. The persistence of a marked paycheck cycle suggests that some recessionary patterns will be hard to shake off—particularly among consumers with lower incomes.
For the full article from the Wall Street Journal, click here.
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27 August 2010
Electronic Mirrors Sell Lipstick and a Makeover
Cosmetics aisles in supermarkets and drugstores are adding electronic makeover specialists with the help of an Israeli start-up.
Retailers including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., France's Carrefour SA and Superdrug Stores PLC in Britain are testing EZface Inc.'s "virtual mirrors" in their stores to simulate what makeup and hair dye would look like on shoppers. Faced with stiff competition from specialist cosmetics stores including Sephora, where shoppers get to try on products before buying them, retailers are looking for new ways to boost sales and reduce damaged inventory from opened packaging by consumers experimenting with products.
The virtual mirror kiosks are designed to be easy to use. A person stands in front of the screen and an internal camera takes a picture. Then the person scans the bar codes of various cosmetics—such as mascara, foundation, eye shadow, blush and lip gloss—and each automatically appears on the appropriate part of the face. A list on the right side of the screen reminds the person what products she is virtually testing. The user can print out the image, send it by email, or post it on Facebook.
The new technology could help consumers overcome their hesitation in splurging on another tube of lipstick or daring a new hair color. "Every lady has a drawer full of the wrong makeup products," said Ruth Gal, the co-founder of EZface.
To reach the full article from the Wall Street Journal, click here.
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26 August 2010
New Technology to Lure Shoppers
Marketing companies are experimenting with a new wave of digital technologies to pitch to consumers while they shop: interactive dressing-room mirrors, kiosks with virtual customer-service representatives, and shopping carts and digital scanners that offer personalized discounts.
These futuristic technologies are among the interactive tools on display at Interpublic Group of Cos.' new retail center at the advertising company's Media Lab in Los Angeles.
There, Interpublic is testing innovative ways for marketers to connect with customers as part of an effort to better understand what makes consumers buy and to encourage companies to rethink their approaches to the role of the retail store.
For the full article from the Wall Street Journal, click here.
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25 August 2010
Why a Quarter of the UK's Top Retailers Don't Do E-Business
Websites form a normal part of daily shopping for many consumers, but a quarter of the UK's top retailers have yet to embrace e-commerce.
Big name fashion brands such as H&M and Gap are only just going live with their sites, and 35 out of the UK's top 142 retailers still do not have a transactional website - a figure experts say is surprising.
Start-ups such as Asos and Net-a-Porter have demonstrated remarkable sales growth, but it has taken years for many retailers to become convinced of the internet's appeal. Of the 142 retailers quizzed in Martec International's recent report on the UK's top retailers, 88% agreed it will grow in the coming years. And on the sales front, the web accounted for 6.3% of total sales this year, compared to 4.8% last year - a growth rate of nearly 50%.
For the full article from Computer Weekly, click here.
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24 August 2010
Fashion's Night Out Goes Beyond New York
While all the hubbub so far has been about Fashion’s Night Out in New York on Sept. 10, the event is a global one, stretching from Los Angeles to Tokyo, London to Sydney. And unlike last September, when each city held its event on the same evening, this year Fashion’s Night Out takes place on different nights. Here, a roundup of some of the events taking place in cities outside New York.
For the full article from Women's Wear Daily (WWD), click here.
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23 August 2010
Nordstrom Uses Web to Locate Items and Increase Sales
Retailers have been flailing about a bit in their efforts to get people to shop again, deploying all sorts of gimmicks and promotions to spur customer spending.
Wal-Mart hoped that deeper cuts in its standard rollbacks would be a draw, but then said the prices went too low. At Saks, perhaps customers would go for designer labels if the lines offered less-expensive items. And for Macy’s, how about inexpensive clothes by Madonna?
The secret, at least for Nordstrom, has not involved a piercing insight into a customer’s mind. Rather, it has changed the way that it handles, of all things, inventory. And that has brought the department store more success in improving sales than at most of its competitors, whose recent reports signaled that their consumers were still cautious.
The change works this way: Say that a shopper was looking at a blue Marc Jacobs handbag at Nordstrom.com. She could see where it was available at nearby stores, and reserve it for pickup the same day.
For the full article from the New York Times, click here.
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23 August 2010
The Price Isn't Right
Everyone knows that companies have rock-bottom prices they're willing to offer in emergencies. Think goods and services whose value is about to expire: hotel dates, plane tickets, last season's fashions, packaged food.
But until recently, not many people knew what those prices were. Keeping them under wraps is a key part of how companies maintain pricing power.
Well, the secret is out. Now, thanks to the Internet, consumers are able to figure out those prices. And that is creating huge headaches for the companies.
Online shoppers today aren't just buyers; they're also product reviewers, technical consultants and scouts for legions of fellow shoppers hunting for bargains. Many use Web sites where links are posted for online coupons and cash-back offers—deals that some companies didn't intend to circulate so widely. Others go to sites where people discuss how to find the lowest bids acceptable on travel-service auction sites. Even shoppers for big-ticket items like cars get an edge from sites that reveal prices paid for new and used cars.
For the full article from the Wall Street Journal, click here.
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20 August 2010
Apparel Retailers Check Out Prices
Clothing retailers are struggling with the right pricing strategy heading into the crucial holiday selling season, as shoppers are increasingly resistant to paying full price at a time when production costs are rising.
Apparel companies have spent the past year trying to wean customers off discount habits formed during the recession. But the choppy economic recovery now is undoing their efforts, as shoppers are reverting to their frugal ways—a bad sign as the critical fourth quarter nears.
For the full article from the Wall Street Journal, click here.
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19 August 2010
Average Family Has Completed More School Shopping Compared to Last Year
Consumers got a jump start on their back-to-school and college shopping this summer as extreme temperatures drove them into stores and out of the pool, according to NRF’s latest Back-to-School/College Consumer Intentions and Actions survey. The average family has completed 43.2 percent of their school shopping, compared to 41.6 percent at this time last year. Similarly, families of college students have completed 43.1 percent of their shopping, versus 41.0 percent the previous year. NRF’s 2010 Back-to-School/College survey found Americans are expected to spend a total of $55.12 billion on K-12 and college merchandise this year.*
“It’s good to see consumers responding to back-to-school sales and promotions,” said NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay. “Back-to-school will be the first real test for retailers and the economy as we plan for the holiday season.”
For the full press release from the National Retail Association (NRF), click here.
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18 August 2010
Swipely Opens to Public, Are People Ready to Broadcast What They're Buying?
The social shopping network Swipely, in private beta for three months, is opening up to the public today. Users upload credit and debit card information so the site seamlessly records where they're "swiping," then choose which purchases to broadcast to friends, with the option to add an image or comment.
Try to explain this idea to any of your non-techie friends, and you'll probably get one reaction: ew, creepy.
Add in Swipely's focus on geolocation, and you have a recipe for scaring people off. Swipely founder Angus Davis acknowledged the challenge. But he said Swipely had twice as many inquiries as it had beta invites, the thousands of users who did get invites love the service, and besides, the company isn't focused on drafting users right now. It's working on user experience and added value, Davis said, and will attract users over time.
For the full article from Read Write Web, click here.
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17 August 2010
Shopkick App Pushes Bargains, Aisle by Aisle
Major retailers are working with a new smartphone application that tracks and offers promotions to shoppers as they move from outside the store, to counters, to cash registers — even inside the dressing room (now that’s persistence).
The app, called Shopkick, will be available on Tuesday for the iPhone and in the fall for Android phones. And with five major companies supporting it — Macy’s, Best Buy, Sports Authority and American Eagle Outfitters, along with the Simon Property Group, the prominent mall operator — it is getting a big introduction.
For the full article from the New York Times, click here.
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16 August 2010
Retailers Use Web Tools Aimed at Younger Shoppers
Shoppers and retailers are turning to cellphones, "haul videos," virtual dressing rooms and social-networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to make the most out of this year's back-to-school shopping season.
With billions of dollars at stake, retailers are going after back-to-school shoppers where they are spending an increasing amount of time - on their cellphones and on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter social-network sites.
For the full article from The Arizona Republic, click here.
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13 August 2010
Macy's Tailored Merchandise Pays Off
Macy's Inc. is benefiting from a plan to tailor merchandise to local markets, an effort that helped push its fiscal second-quarter earnings higher. But the retailer Wednesday reiterated uncertainty about the economy even as it raised its yearly earnings forecast.
The department-store operator is entering the fall-shopping season "with tremendous momentum," but the economy remains uncertain, Chairman and Chief Executive Terry Lundgren said in a statement.
For the full article from the Wall Street Journal, click here.
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09 August 2010
Levi's Brand Introduces Revolutionary Fit System that Focuses on Shape, Not Size
Today, Levi's® - the original, definitive jeans brand - announced a new line of custom fit jeans made to fit the curve of a woman's body. The new line, Levi's® Curve ID, utilizes a revolutionary fit system based on shape, not size and was created as a result of studying more than 60,000 body scans and listening to women around the world of all shapes and sizes.
Through this research, Levi's® designers created a new approach to measuring a woman's body and identified three distinct body types that account for 80 percent of women's shapes universally. The three Levi's® Curve ID fits are based on these universal body types.
For the full article from the CNW group, click here.
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06 August 2010
Corporation or Consumer: Who's Driving Us Toward Sustainability
As a consumer, it’s nice to think that you’re in the driver’s seat. Each dollar you spend goes to this retailer, then to that supplier and on to such-and-such manufacturer, quite often ending up at so-and-so corporation and/or global conglomerate. Where and on what you spend that dollar determines which companies earn profit and influences how other companies make products as they try to compete on the open market. That is the win-win scenario often outlined by “free market” proponents, is it not?
For the full article from Eco Friendly Mag, click here.
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05 August 2010
Retail Sales Prove to be Sluggish in July
The second half of the year is off to a slow start for retailers, who reported Thursday that their sales at stores open at least a year were weaker than expected in July, increasing only 2.9 percent from the month a year ago.
The modest increases also raise some questions about the crucial back-to-school season.
Almost two-thirds of the stores reporting sales missed the analyst estimates collected by Thomson Reuters, with retailers catering to teenagers faring particularly badly, increasing only 1.5 percent. Discount stores and department stores posted better results, increasing 3.9 percent and 3.6 percent, respectively.
For the full article from the New York Times, click here.
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04 August 2010
STORES Magazine Releases Hot 100 Retailers
What happens when a recession ends and (seemingly) nobody recovers? Retailers may be discovering the answer to this disturbing question right now.
Last year was tough slogging for merchants and shoppers alike, as the STORES Hot 100 Retailers report reflects. Nevertheless, some retailers managed to generate solid to strong results, particularly those with value propositions that appeal to consumer frugality. In addition, chains with novel or otherwise different concepts were able to attract those shoppers willing to spend. For other merchants, especially those in the apparel business, volume increases were made easier by comparisons with dismal prior-year figures.
A tight economy typically squeezes underperforming retailers harder than their competitors, which leads to consolidation and a surfeit of vacant store locations, which in turn paves the way for expansion opportunities for hot or shrewd retailers — and especially those that are both hot and shrewd.
For the full article from the National Retail Association (NRF), click here.
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03 August 2010
Top 10 Mid-Year Retail Rock Stars
High unemployment and sluggish economic growth has politicians and economists (not to mention ordinary consumers) worried, but judging by mid-year financial reports, some retailers have found ways to prosper even in tough times. This mid-year snapshot of the RIS News Top 10 Financial Performers includes retailers who have managed dramatic, sometimes double-digit increases in key metrics, including overall sales, net income and comparable store sales.
The list, which includes Publix, JC Penney, Family Dollar, Amazon.com, DSW and West Marine, reveals some good news and, unfortunately for the industry, some bad news. The good news is that this Winner's Circle is populated by companies from several different verticals: supermarkets, department stores, e-tailers, apparel and specialty retailers. That's an indication that strong financial performance isn't limited to retailers in just a few key product categories, or those serving only a limited set of customer groups.
The bad news is that the corporate financial reports for the most recent quarter available, which served as the basis for this list, compare these retailers' performance in 2010 to the same period in 2009--a period when the U.S. as a whole was still deeply affected by the global recession. So at least in some cases, impressive performance this year might be more of a reflection of the truly tough year many retailers suffered in 2009.
For the full article from RIS News, click here.
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03 August 2010
A Technology Revolution: Where is the Spend Management Technology Market Going? (Part 1)
I recently spent quite a bit of time thinking through the historic evolution of the sourcing, procurement and supply chain technology markets and where the overall sector could be headed -- including how individual technology areas will consolidate based on how customers and channel/consultants are beginning to think about solutions today. Spend Matters will be publishing a report on this topic later in the year, but I wanted to present a few early takeaways that I think Spend Matters readers will find interesting and potentially useful, especially as it pertains to making highly targeted technology investments today relative to broader ones in the not-so-distant future. The most important takeaways that I see involve the consolidation of Spend Management technologies into three key market segments (of course there are individual areas, like services procurement, which do not fit neatly into either of these three, and they will continue to stand alone).
For the full article from Spend Matters, click here.
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01 August 2010
AT&T, Verizon to Target Visa, MasterCard with Smartphones
AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless, the biggest U.S. mobile carriers, are planning a venture to displace credit and debit cards with smartphones, posing a new threat to Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc., three people with direct knowledge of the plan said.
The partnership, which also includes Deutsche Telekom AG unit T-Mobile USA, may work with Discover Financial Services and Barclays Plc to test a system at stores in Atlanta and three other U.S. cities that would let a consumer pay with the contactless wave of a smartphone, the people said. The carriers have been searching for a chief executive officer.
For the full article from Bloomberg, click here.