BUST: A Hard Landing as Soft Surroundings Files for Bankruptcy

How Showroom Concept Stores Are Changing the Retail Industry

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A number of major retailers and startups have been pioneering a local showrooming strategy, divorcing the purchasing of products from the distribution, and focusing more on experiences than in-person sales. Here are six examples of retailers that have been able to navigate this merchandise-free (or light) approach to local retail.

How AI Bots, Voice Assistants Are Changing Shopper Behaviors

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Rapid changes in the way people communicate aren’t just impacting personal relationships, they’re also hitting the retail market as consumer preferences evolve. In a new report released just this morning, the post-purchase solutions provider Narvar uncovers generational differences in how consumers prefer interacting with retailers.

How Brands Are Targeting Moms with Localized Campaigns

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Moms control the purse strings year-round, but their influence on the retail sector is especially strong during the fourth quarter, when back-to-school and holiday shopping give the industry a much-needed boost. Here are five examples of hyperlocal strategies that brands are using to target moms right now.

PlaceIQ Study Examines the State of Integrated Marketing

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A generational shift is impacting the way consumers interact with brands, downplaying the role that physical stores play in the traditional retail environment. According to Duncan McCall, CEO of location intelligence firm PlaceIQ, the changes that brands have seen thus far are just the tip of the iceberg.

Placed Analysis Uncovers Location Data Biases

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According to a new report released by the location-driven insights firm Placed, accuracy has fallen by the wayside in the rapidly expanding location-based advertising industry, which is estimated to reach nearly $30 billion by 2020. Placed’s analysis found that just 1% of locations are accurate enough to identify a store visit.

6 Mobile Customer Service Platforms for Retailers

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Tech vendors are stepping in with mobile solutions designed to expand the ways store associates interact with customers. These solutions allow employees to do everything from checking inventory and processing transactions on smartphones to accessing real-time information about current promotions and customer purchase histories.

Drawbridge Partnership Brings Identity Graph to Latin American Market

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Latin America has become a hot spot for mobile advertising, with forecasters predicting that ad spending in the region will grow at a faster rate than anywhere else in the world through 2019. Today, the cross-device identity firm Drawbridge is expanding into the market in a big way.

Swedish Location Management Company PinMeTo Secures H&M Investment

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Local presence management vendor PinMeTo is celebrating an investment from the retail giant in a tactical round the company sees as a stepping stone to further expansion. “Our goal is and has been to expand globally in 2018,” says COO Andre Tiwari, “and H&M brings invaluable knowledge and support for that goal.”

Case Study: Audiologist Offloads Management of Digital Campaigns

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Audiology First owner Diana Wagner knew that establishing a presence online would be essential to growing her business, but running online marketing campaigns required too much day-to-day involvement for her to be able to handle everything on her own.

Case Study: Jack in the Box Explores Autonomous Delivery Robots

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While the company is keeping a tight lid on which other technology platforms it’s testing out currently, Alter says consumers can expect that its new robot delivery fleet is just a part of its experimentation with hyperlocal tech.

How Football Viewership Trends Impact Brand Advertisers

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Sports bars suffered in the wake of declining NFL ratings last season, but a drop in viewership could actually benefit hardware stores, gas stations, and supermarkets, according to a new analysis just released this morning by the location intelligence company Foursquare.

How 5 Brands Use Geo-Targeting to Fuel In-Store Sales

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By serving mobile ads based on users’ geographic locations, brands can avoid these types of blunders and hone in on the type of hyper-specific messaging that boosts engagement and click-through rates.

Report: Proximity Solutions Industry Evolving Beyond Retail Marketing

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As the proximity solutions industry undergoes rapid expansion, providers are changing up the technologies they rely on. Meanwhile, industries as varied as healthcare, marijuana, and aerospace defense manufacturing are finding new applications for proximity technology.

Foursquare’s New Swarm Update Emphasizes Tracking Past Visits

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The company is releasing a major update to its Swarm mobile app this morning, moving its focus away from head-to-head competition and real-time check-ins, with a more streamlined way to revisit personal moments from the past.

Case Study: How a Newborn Photographer Uses CRM for Creative Remarketing

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Heather Read isn’t just the lead photographer at her eponymous business in Chicago, Illinois, she’s also the head marketer, strategist, editor, and customer service representative. Like so many other small business owners, Read finds it difficult to launch the types of aggressive campaigns she needs to keep her business growing.

5 Ways Retail Brands Are Using Mobile Tech to Assist In-Store Shoppers

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Consumers are doing more of their shopping online, and when they do come inside physical stores, they expect to be wowed. Here are five examples of ways that major retailers like Lowe’s, Nordstrom, and Bonobos are implementing mobile technology platforms inside their physical stores.

inMarket Expands Audiences Segmenting Product in Bid to Fix Programmatic Location Accuracy

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In-store advertising vendor inMarket is expanding its offerings to agency trading desks this morning, with the announcement that it’s opening up its Audiences segmenting product as a self-service solution. Beginning today, agency bid desks will be able to use inMarket’s reservoir of first-party location data to enable hyperlocal targeting.

Local SEO Guide Launches Tool for Tracking Google My Business Updates

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The company is releasing a tool to minimize unapproved changes to Google My Business pages. Although Local SEO Guide’s Locadium tool was originally developed for the company’s own clients, CEO Andrew Shotland says the decision was made to open Locadium up to the general public after a number of SEO firms expressed interest.

Foursquare Analysis Highlights Looming Bubble for Boutique Fitness Studios

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Forget those New Year’s resolutions. The biggest surge in attendance at gyms and boutique fitness studios actually happens in the spring and early summer, according to a new analysis of foot traffic patterns by the data science team at Foursquare.

Alignable Rankings Show Lead Generation, Hiring Categories Primed for Disruption

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Small businesses are largely at the mercy of the online reviews published on sites like Yelp and Facebook, but now those business owners have turned the tables with some tough critiques for technology vendors in a new report published by the SMB social networking platform Alignable.