The phrase ‘mobile and social’ may be becoming redundant in discussions about the future of the retail industry, but the two topics cannot be ignored when it comes to the reality of current and future retail success. As anticipated, mobile and social were key topics of discussion and announcements during the eTail West conference, held last week in Palm Desert, California.
More specifically, attendees and exhibitors shared insights on key topics, such as:
- The questionable role of Facebook storefronts moving forward
- The increasing need for personalization in the customer experience across all channels
- The importance of looking before you leap (strategizing) in the social media arena
- The current and future role of mobility in retail – including mobile web sites, landing pages, apps and payment
- The role of Big Data and analytics
- The role of new sites such as Pinterest.com
Following are several announcements from solution provider exhibitors during eTail:
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Janrain released findings from their second Social Identity study conducted by Blue Research, showing that consumer frustration at being asked to register on a website continues to grow and almost eight in ten people want social login to be offered as an alternative. Janrain commissioned Blue Research for the study, which was conducted among a nationwide cross section of more than 600 consumers.
Badgeville presented a gamification case study on Thursday during the Social Commerce Track. Badgeville works with many retail and consumer brands, including Samsung, Barnes & Noble, Bluefly.com, Chegg, Brad’s Deals, General Mills, Footlocker, Panera Bread and more.
Zmags a provider of rich media mobile and social merchandising, introduced a consumer shopping user interface (UI) called “Zmags Convergence.” Built to harness the iPad’s user interface and browsing appeal – while also highly engaging via Facebook, smartphones and PC-based browsers – Zmags Convergence helps retailers and brands quickly appeal to the growing numbers of tablet, mobile and social shoppers.
VisiStat CEO Jim Bennette chaired the web analytics and social media optimization track during the event. The session featured speakers from companies such as GameStop, Cinsay, Sony Corp. and Hewlett-Packard. VisiStat also demonstrated the latest version of its customer intelligence solution at its exhibit hall booth.
Kount presented its all-in-one fraud and risk management solution for companies operating in card-not-present environments looking to simplify their fraud/risk operations and dramatically improve bottom line profitability. For each transaction, Kount Complete™ analyzes hundreds of relevant variables and activity across the globe in real-time, then delivers a highly predictive risk assessment in less than one second. Kount provides a single, turnkey fraud solution that is easy-to-implement and easy-to-use.
BloomReach, a Big Data cloud marketing platform, officially launched on February 22 and unveiled new products during eTail: BloomSearch, BloomLift and BloomSocial services. The company currently works with 70 large retailers, include Williams-Sonoma, Guess Jeans, and major luxury department stores (Neiman Marcus). BloomReach reported that retailers using its platform increase site traffic and average of 80% and to date have garnered more than $150 million in incremental revenue.
Akamai Co-Founder and Chief Scientist Tom Leighton delivered a keynote presentation entitled, “Meeting the Demands of a Hyperconnected World.” The Akamai Intelligent Platform™ supports 24/7 consumer demand, and enabling enterprises to securely leverage the cloud.
MyBuys announced a partnership with eight of the leading ESPs in the market, including Responsys, ExactTarget, CheetahMail and emailvision to deliver its personalized email solutions to market. Retailers can now utilize all of MyBuys’ personalized emails through their existing ESP platform – allowing them to manage and measure all campaigns in a single place.
PowerReviews announced the launch of its Essential Social Suite (ESS), marking the first time ever that businesses of all kinds can precisely measure the dollar impact of social activity. ESS is a powerful new suite of tools that helps companies promote, reward and measure customer engagement and content generation in the service of business objectives such as sales and site traffic. PowerReviews is the world’s largest social commerce network, and helps more than 5,500 brands tap into consumer conversations to drive better business results.
ShopIgniter, a provider of social commerce software, today is announcing the availability of its enterprise-scale commerce platform. The social commerce suite includes tools and back-end integration to effectively execute integrated commerce campaigns that address the needs of the social and always on customer.
During the conference, Retail TouchPoints also met with a number of other exhibitors including: SteelHouse, Baynote, ReturnPath, NetSuite, Limelight Networks, MoGreet, Mobify, CashStar, Knotice, Certona, TGate, Listrak, Skuloop, Bronto, and ReturnPath.