At NRF this week, Microsoft announced a strategic alliance with Intel to deliver a new validated platform optimized for the digital signage industry. For some time, the retail and hospitality markets have needed a more high performance and reliable platform for digital signage – this new platform will...

  Excellent demo of a fully Hosted Customer Interaction Management Platform from Clarity Consulting: http://connect.claritycon.com/

Impulse buying can account for a significant percentage of all supermarket purchases (I've seen different research reports peg it between 20% to 60%. One of the latest reports puts it closer to 20% See article ). Market Basket Analysis enables retailers to discover which items tend to be bought together...

I have been exploring several solutions that would enable retailers to reduce the usage of paper at the store level. Retailers can opt in for several solutions that include Digital Receipts, Digital Coupons, Digital Shopping Lists and so on. I've seen several solutions that address Paperless Receipts...

I usually prefer researching information about products on my PC at home to delve through the details, comparisons and customer reviews. However, the problem with online buying is that you don't get to touch and feel the product like you do when you walk into a brick and mortar store. With mobile phones...

I just read an interesting blogpost by Jose Feromoso about Hollola in Finland and how they use RFID to provide a great shopping experience. Sensors pick up the RFID as soon as a product is taken off the shelf. Screens in the fitting room bring up the items that you have in your hand as soon as you enter...

I just got an email from Matt Gaines of ACE Marketing & Promotions Inc pointing me to some exciting stuff that they are working on in the Proximity Marketing Space. Ace Marketing & Promotions,  today announced that the Company has partnered with Macy's in making the 82nd Annual Macy's Thanksgiving...

Retailers have been exploring several technologies for proximity marketing within the retail store. This has ranged from using Text Messaging to using RFID. I came across an interesting technology (Thanks Marty :) ) that I thought bypasses the challenges of Text Messaging (cost of text messages to the...

Here is an interesting consumer application that Conchango built for Retail customers. Watch the video from Channel 9: Conchango and the Tesco project

The Convention is open January 11-14 and the EXPO Hall Floor and DESiGN STUDiO January 12-13. Registration is open at : LINK Now Reading : Competing on Analytics (Excellent book on understanding the power of analytics in business)

First Look: Office 14 for Web Watch Antoine Leblond, Senior VP of Office Productivity and Chris Bryant, Group Product Manager demonstrate Office 14 for the Web.

Shopping is a social activity and more and more retailers are realizing that they need to embrace social computing (or the “groundswell” as explained in an excellent must-read book by the same name by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff ). Offline, people don’t change behaviors quickly, so...

As we explore more efficient ways for the customer to be in and out of the store as quickly as possible without losing out on customer touch, customer centricity and cross-selling we have been looking at several technologies for self-checkout ranging from RFID to MediaCart. Self checkout systems are...

I tried out Tagga.com today and think its a neat little application for creating quick SMS campaigns. You can tag items in the physical world and create badges like the one you see alongside and have people text in a key word for more details. For instance, if you text the word SHISH to 82442 you will...

Recruiters have been known to mine all information about you via Blogs, Twitters and the other digital footprints that you leave behind. An online identity is a social identity that you establish in online communities. Although some people prefer to use their real names, most Internet users prefer to...

A QR Code is a matrix code or two-dimensional bar code created by Japanese corporation Denso-Wave in 1994. The "QR" is derived from "Quick Response", as the creator intended the code to allow its contents to be decoded at high speed. The possibilities of using QR Codes are endless...

Store Associates in specialty retailers are sometimes challenged in finding quick answers to customer questions about products. They need a quick way to find information. Search capabilities that can be accessed easily using kiosks and mobile devices can make the store associate far more effective. In...

In this demo, Chris Mayo, the technical evangelist for Unified Communications (UC) and John Rauschenberger from Clarity Consulting  team up to show how developers can customize UC features to hit everything from outgoing calls, IP phone, to smart presence awareness. John also whiteboards how the...

Steve Rosenberg took a table at a restaurant in Nuremberg, Germany - where customers use touchscreen TVs to choose their meal, and all the food is delivered by helter-skelter. Link to Video

A German supermarket is encouraging customers to scan and ring up their shopping using mobile phones, and check out without the help of a cashier. It is one of the number of innovations at the new "Future Store" - as Steve Rosenberg discovered when he went along to do his weekly shopping. Link...

Last week I had an opportunity to see Mediacart in action and was pretty impressed by the scenarios that it could empower: quick scan and bag to speed the checkout process (for the retailer this can mean reduced labor costs); display store specials, discounts and coupons; get detailed product information...

Store Managers, District Managers and HQ can benefit greatly from reacting to business conditions on the fly. They need to be aware of changing business conditions and be able to see how the business is reacting, understand what changes need to be made, and adjust plans and forecasts to meet new challenges...