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Best Buy, Express, Saks Executives Share Insights Into Digital & Social Trends During The 2012 NRF BIG Show

 
Mobile and social are hot topics for retailers eager to engage and win purchases from today’s digitized shoppers. During the 101st Retail’s BIG Show Convention & EXPO, hosted by National Retail Federation (NRF), best-in-class retailers, including Best Buy, Express and Saks Fifth Avenue, will share their insights about the benefits of implementing new engagement strategies. More than 20,000 retail executives and industry professionals are anticipated to attend this year’s conference, with 400-plus exhibitors presenting on the show floor, according to the NRF web site. The event will take place Jan. 15-18, 2012, at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City.

President Bill Clinton will present the BIG Show’s keynote speech, titled “Embracing Our Common Humanity.” During his presentation, Clinton will discuss key messages from his array of lectures, including current challenges in globalization. Moderated by Terry J. Lundgren, Chairman, President and CEO of Macy’s Inc., Clinton’s presentation will highlight how companies can progress, and share goals and values for success.

In a separate keynote, David Lauren, Executive Vice President of Advertising, Marketing and Corporate Communications for Ralph Lauren Corporation, will reveal how the classic brand is keeping pace with the emergence of new technologies. Lauren will reveal the retailer’s marketing initiatives across channels and how they have provided consumers with a 360-degree view of the brand, turning Ralph Lauren into a sought-after lifestyle.

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Executives from Best Buy will highlight how the retailer revamped its brand to appeal to omni-channel consumers. The company will host two separate breakout sessions. During “Has Mobile Marketing Revolutionized Shopper Engagement?” W. Don Wortley, the retailer’s digital marketing manager, will share how new mobile solutions will help merchants revolutionize the in-store experience. During “Best Buy’s Customers Integrate, Share and Win,” Mark Herzog, Research Director of Best Buy, will spotlight the development of the retailer’s private online community: the Inner Circle.

In a session titled “Winning Today’s Digitally-Enhanced Shopper,” Lisa Gavales, Executive Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer for Express, will discuss how retailers can track and respond to shoppers’ voices across digital and social channels. Gavales will share how the keys to engagement and brand influence have changed by sharing Express’ most successful strategies and campaigns.

Kimberly Grabel, Senior Vice President, Marketing and Advertising for Saks Fifth Avenue, and Nick Jones, Executive Vice President, Retail Practice Lead for Arc Worldwide, will share everything retailers need to know regarding the desires and preferences of social shoppers. Grabel and Jones will present an array of quantitative and qualitative research, including consumer video testimonials that expose the behaviors, wants and needs of social shoppers. Session attendees also will learn how cutting-edge retailers have catered to this unique audience by tapping into tools and tactics of engagement, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and geo-location apps such as foursquare.

Other retailers, including Aeropostale, Pacific Sunwear, PETCO, Rent The Runway, Sears Holdings Corporation and Threadless, will share top tips on hard-hitting topics, including:

  • New merchandising strategies;
  • Building an engaging, relevant brand;
  • Rolling out a compelling in-store experience with interactive technology; and
  • Developments in e-Commerce, m-Commerce and social media.


On EXPO Floor
: Retail Solution Providers Will Showcase Demos, Launch Products

In total, more than 400 solution providers will feature their solutions and services on the 150,000-square-foot show floor. A selection of those offerings will include:

AJB Software Design, Inc. (Booth #1875): The payment solution provider will announce its partnership with PayPal, in which the company will integrate PayPal into its POS products and services. The new partnership will encourage a wider audience of retailers to allow PayPal usage in store. Featuring a native PayPal interface within the AJB platform, the new solution is designed to provide PayPal members with the option to either pay for merchandise by swiping their PayPal Access Card, or by entering their mobile phone number and account password.

Cegid (Booth #1669): The international enterprise and merchandise management and point-of-sale solution provider will showcase a variety of new technologies designed to help retailers create a more interactive in-store experience. With clients including Calvin Klein Jeans and Quiksilver, Cegid will be showcasing its Innovation Store, which includes mPOS, RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) and materials tracking.

CrossView (Booth # 3044): Among its suite of offerings to be demonstrated, the cross-channel commerce solutions and retail technology company will provide an interactive tour of the customer journey to indicate how retailers can unify in-store, Web store, call center and mobile touch points on a single platform. CrossView also will demonstrate its delivery of analytics across the platform and show how intelligence can be used to create more personalized, profitable customer interactions. 

Epicor (Booth # 2105, 2973, 2977): Following the theme of mobility and multichannel retail, Epicor will release its Retail Clientelling solution, available for tablet devices and optimized for the iPad. The new release is designed to deliver critical insight from retailers’ CRM databases into sales associates’ hands while they’re engaging with shoppers. The company also will be promoting an array of new solutions, including the Epicor Retail Multi-Channel Transaction Adapter. Epicor also will launch Epicor Eagle Release 21, which includes new customer-centric features and mobile functionality in an effort to increase business efficiency and improve customer loyalty and satisfaction.

Lawrence, a Tensator Group Company (Booth #3317): Selected by NRF as the company to manage attendee registration for this year’s conference, Lawrence/Tensator’s goal is to optimize customer traffic and reduce wait times via a queue management system. Its queue management solutions will be demonstrated at its booth. Lawrence/Tensator retail clients include Duane Reade, JCPenney, Kohl’s and UNIQLO.

Omnitrol Networks (Booth #156): Omnitrol will demonstrate its Retail Smart-Store application, designed to provide real-time operational intelligence by leveraging wireless, sensor-based RFID data. The solution was developed to automate a wide variety of in-store business processes, including receiving, replenishment and inventory management.  

Opterus, Inc. (Booth #1970): The store communications and task management solution provider recently announced the release of its newest product, Store Ops-Center (SOC) Version 3.2, which includes capacity planning functionality. The new capacity planning offering is designed to allow retailers to accurately track and assign tasks within each store, and specify the total number of task hours each location is expected to acquire. As a result, store employees can determine the effect of specific tasks on overall workload and productivity. By including this new feature, the web-based solution will allow retailers to manage and execute store tasks more efficiently.

Predictix (Booth #1477): Predictix will demonstrate its suite of Cloud 2.0 merchandising applications designed to harness the unlimited computing power and elasticity of the cloud. This power, combined with the latest advances in research and science, drives significantly more accurate forecasts and enables Predictix to handle retail’s growing thirst for Big Data analytics. For example, Predictix is deploying 1,600 computing cores simultaneously for a leading Tier 1 retailer, providing supercomputer-scale power with software and Big Data analytics designed expressly for the cloud.

QuantiSense (Booth #765, 2978): QuantiSense executives will unveil Version 6 of the Decision Orchestration Platform, a retail analytics solution that combines business intelligence with industry best practices. The new release will provide more actionable data relevant to merchandising and store operations personnel. Features and functionality include an enhanced playbooks capability, smart filtering, dynamic timeframes and improved demand prediction.

Revionics, Inc. (Booth #459): This retail life cycle price optimization solution provider will showcase several of its new and enhanced offerings, including shopper-centric pricing and promotions with social and mobile offer publishing, as well as end-to-end markdown optimization. Company experts will be on call during the conference to demonstrate Revionics’ suite of solutions. In addition, during the Big Idea Session, in a presentation titled “Winning in the Age of the Shopper,” Revionics will co-present with Pamida, a regional retailer with 193 stores in 17 states.

Starmount (Booth #2073): Starmount is debuting the latest version of its mobile selling assistant solution, Starmount Engage 2.1, which already has been successfully deployed by Urban Outfitters. The company also will introduce Starmount Connect, an omni-channel customer engagement platform that empowers retailers to deliver a more personalized in-store shopping experience by bringing rich online data from multiple sources into the store.

Stella Nova Technologies (Booth #2383): Demonstrations of the company’s latest POS solution, Stella Nova Mobile Retail Framework, will take place throughout the conference. Stella Nova also will be at the Motorola Solutions booth (Booth #1702), where it will showcase the HTML 5 Cloud-enabled mobile POS application developed on Motorola’s RhoElements framework and rolled out on Motorola’s new Enterprise Tablet (ET1) and MC55 mobile computer.

Torex (Booth #882, 1827): The Torex Commerce Suite for Retail solution and the MiRetail Hub will be on display. The Commerce Suite is designed to modify a retailer’s IT application infrastructure while providing a consistent, personalized experience across channels. The MiRetail Hub delivers a seamless and integrated customer experience across channels by managing the business processes in a single application. The Hub operates alongside the Torex Retail-J POS solution, Torex Merchandise Planning, Torex Business Analytics and new cloud based product for POS and social media reputation management.

UPM RFID (Booth #2153): As retailers continue to consider the benefits of implementing mobile payment platforms, UPM RFID and its partners will exhibit the latest NFC and RFID solutions. Partners such as Blue Bit, Mid-South Marking Systems, Overheer Systems and Pittsfield ID will exhibit new solutions integrated with UPM platforms, including an NFC-enabled advertising/retail display solution and an electronic product code tagging mechanism.


AN12_300x250_exhibiting
Retail TouchPoints
will be exhibiting at Booth #1032. Stop by and catch a glimpse of today’s leading retail executives as they share insights on trending topics in the industry for our podcast, TouchPoints TV.
 

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