News and Analysis
Why Are So Many Retailers Investing in Next-Day Order Fulfillment in 2023?
The continued growth and normalization of online shopping is creating increased demand for faster delivery times and forcing retailers to make significant investments in shipping to stay relevant.
What Comes Next for Generative AI in Retail? Here’s What the Experts Say
No longer reserved for strictly marketing or communications tasks, generative AI is now being integrated into aspects of daily retail, supply chain, and customer service operations.
Kevel: Why Retail Media Needs a Rebellion
Retail media is one of digital advertising’s fastest-growing sectors. But the space is also home to intense debates over retailers’ control of their own data and inventory, the emergence of new walled gardens, and privacy. James Avery, CEO and founder of Kevel, claims retail media needs a “rebellion.” We talked about why.
Commentary
How E-Commerce Sites Can Remain Competitive in a Rapidly Accelerating Digital Age
Customer experience isn’t anything new, but new ideas can be applied here, especially in the digital space. The question now revolves around how to create the same welcoming environment you’d create in a physical store online. It can be as simple as choosing colors for your website to elicit certain moods or using certain tech features like a chatbot to welcome customers as they “enter” your store. And it’s about making sure that customers can find your store — and this is where our affiliates become a key part of our strategy.
How Accurate Geolocation Data Fosters a Better Customer Experience
Having the most reliable data the first time you ask for it is a no brainer for the consumer, but its obvious importance is often overlooked by the provider. Data quality should be a dominant component to support a business’ reputation. But what if the data were slightly off? What implications does that have?
Rebuilding Retail with Customer-First Experiences Online and In-Store
There’s so much discussion around returning to the old normal, but retail’s future depends on getting as far as way from normal as it can. Retailers need to seize the opportunity and reimagine the experiences they provide—and create the next normal.
What would this look like? As a guiding principle, retailers should be finding ways to put the customer first in the experiences we provide.
Latest Posts
6 Ways Brands Can Reach New Audiences with TikTok
TikTok is currently unavoidable, in particular when it comes to targeting Generation Z. At the moment there seems to be no way for advertisers and marketers to bypass this platform. But what is it exactly, and what advertising opportunities does it offer brands and agencies?
Get Ready for America’s GDPR: CCPA
With regulation comes the emergence of new opportunities. The same logic that brought on GDPR will be stateside on January 1, 2020, when the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) is put into effect. This legislation will allow California residents more control over their personal data. The objective is simple: provide better consumer protections and enhance the respect of privacy by improving transparency regarding the way companies are using their users’ data.
Jean-Noël Barneron of Herow provides one of the clearest breakdowns of CCPA, going into effect Jan 1, you’ll read.
Three Ways Indoor Maps Do More for Complex Retail Buildings
Once a venue’s maps have been digitized for wayfinding purposes, there are many ways to drive additional ROI from that same set of indoor maps. When location technologies are designed with interoperability in mind, it becomes possible to blend different technologies together to create smart solutions that provide value not only to business operations but also to consumers. By integrating digitized, layer-based indoor maps with other solutions such as the indoor equivalent of GPS, known as Indoor Positioning Systems (IPS), asset tracking and business intelligence, great things become possible.
Here is a shortlist of the top use cases that malls can implement to generate further ROI from their indoor mapping investments.
How Can Brands Capitalize on Google’s Latest Ads Update?
Almost a month has passed since Google officially killed its ‘average position’ metric. The metric was retired on September 30, and marketers using Google Ads have been encouraged to transition to using ‘prominence metrics’—made up of the search top impression rate and search absolute top impression rate—instead. Google’s announcement was designed to give brands the opportunity to update their strategies before the average position metric was axed to hopefully make the transition a seamless process.
To understand how that transition is actually working in the real world, and how brands are adapting to the change from one metric to another, we connected with Walker Sands Digital’s Ryan Sorrell. A digital marketing expert with experience deploying competitive content analysis for B2B clients, Sorrell shared his thoughts on how Google’s decision to axe the average position metric will impact brands going forward and which new opportunities are at play as Google shifts its sights toward automated bidding strategies.
LBMA Vidcast: Snapchat Using OOH & AR; Gig Economy Under Fire
On this week’s Location-Based Marketing Association podcast: Snapchat using OOH + AR, Zippin has store at Sacramento Kings stadium, Gig Economy under fire in California, Michael’s Stores + UPS, Wirecard partners with SES-imagotag, UPS gets drone fleet approval in U.S.
Report: Text Messages, Online Chat Essential Channels for Businesses
More than 70% of US consumers polled in a survey commissioned by business messaging platform Quiq had engaged with businesses via text messaging or online chat two or more times in the previous month.
That should be a signal to businesses that email and phone are no longer sufficient; messaging will be key to survival for consumer-facing businesses of the future.
Adapting to New iOS13 and Android Q Location Sharing Permission Changes: What to Expect
This month, both Apple and Google released significant updates to their operating systems (OS) that will have a big impact on the way location data is shared and collected. It is just one of many ways the tech industry is trying to self-regulate and protect consumers’ information in the absence of federal-level privacy regulations.
These new location-sharing permission changes impact an app’s ability to gather the necessary data they need to build location-based app features, and while it’s too early to understand the significance of the impact, these changes give a clear indication of how the tech industry must evolve to be more transparent with consumers and provide clearer, opt-in consent through any data exchange.
Adapting and adjusting to these changes first and foremost require a high-level understanding of what specifically these updates include, and how they impact the interaction between an app and its users.
Amazon is Making Meaningful Gains in Search Ad Market
It will be key to see if the pace of Amazon’s overall and search ad revenue slows down in the next few years as it exhausts. For now, its ad success is just one more sign, like the news that it will likely sell its Go tech to retailers, that Amazon can find and dominate new businesses beyond its core identity as the Everything Store.
Retail as a Service: Amazon Tips its Hand
Amazon has a knack for moving into new vertical segments and then applying its logistical mastery and economies of scale to carve out margins and undercut incumbents. Then, it doubles down by scaling things up to its signature high-volume/low-margin approach. As Jeff Bezos ruthlessly admits, “Your margin is my opportunity.”
The latest place for this to unfold is retail. No, we’re not talking about Whole Foods, though that’s part it (more on that in a bit). We’re talking about Amazon’s transformation of the in-store experience — upending and streamlining logistics just like it’s done in shipping and cloud computing.
Here are some predictions for how Amazon’s disruption of retail via licensing of its Go technology will upend the industry.
Olo Deal Helps Restaurants Access Traffic From Google’s Platforms
Ninety percent of consumers research restaurants online before dining—more than any other business type—and the vast majority of those web searches start on Google. The search giant plays an important role in the success of restaurant marketing online, making it a desirable partner for any digital platform serving the restaurant industry.
Partnering with Google often means increased search traffic and a strengthened position within the restaurant vertical, which helps to explain the enthusiasm coming from Olo’s recent announcement that it will be working with Google to allow its restaurant partners to receive orders directly from Google Search, Maps, and Google Assistant.
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