Can Target’s Private Label Products Help Them Compete? Three Brand Experts Weigh In
Target launched its first private label brand in 1984 with the launch of the Honors clothing line. These product lines are now called “owned brands” by the MULO (multi-location) retail giant, which now has nearly 50 owned brands, some of which they have begun to sell to other retailers, making Target a wholesaler and shopping […]
LBMA: Target and Safeway Use Google Pay for Location-Based Promotions
In this episode of Location Weekly, the Location-Based Marketing Association covers TikTok partnering with Nielsen for geo-targeted campaigns with the aim of helping SMBs, Target and Safeway using Google Pay for location-based promotions, Petco using facial recognition tech to reunite lost pets with owners, and a KLM billboard that listens for flu symptoms.
Earnings Season Teases Retail’s Next Normal
Earnings results that rolled out from retail giants over the past week further demonstrate what our next normal will look like. Specifically, Walmart and Target both hit record numbers. This is partly a function of Covid-era circumstances, but it is also due to each retailer’s active e-commerce momentum.
The earnings validate consumer acclimation to digitally infused local shopping. What’s more, other retailers and down-market businesses will look to replicate this success. This can all therefore be viewed as a leading indicator for retail’s next normal.
Blending Online and In-Store: The Boom of BOPIS
BOPIS — buy online, pick up in store — has become a fixture among cutting-edge retailers over the past several years. But this holiday season has made 2019 the breakthrough year for BOPIS. There’s rising demand among consumers for this handy shopping option. And retailers, seeing how the tactic benefits them as well, are stepping up to meet that demand.
Retailers Hoping for Record Cyber Monday to Follow Friday Windfall
US retailers set all-time records on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, wracking up $11.6 billion in online sales. Adobe predicts that Cyber Monday will also set a fresh record of $9.4 billion, pushing the Thanksgiving weekend total to nearly $30 billion.
The increasing importance of online sales has forced traditional retailers to compete with e-commerce natives like Amazon not only by offering their own robust set of deals but also by investing in delivery infrastructure and reducing friction for consumers ordering online.
5 Innovative Ways to Use AR in Holiday Marketing
A technology that was once considered to be on the fringes of digital marketing has moved into the mainstream, as retailers around the country find new ways to use AR in their 2019 holiday campaigns. From virtual try-ons to camera filters designed to drive people into physical store locations, there’s no limit to the number of ways creative marketers can use AR. Enterprising retailers are capitalizing on the momentum as they come up with smarter ways to help shoppers contextually visualize what products will look like on their bodies and in their homes.
Let’s take a look at how five major companies are using AR for holiday marketing this year.
FedEx Stops Ground Deliveries for Amazon, Signaling Delivery War to Come
For FedEx as for the many other companies and industries Amazon has decimated over the past 20 years, the problem in confronting Amazon may turn out to be one of margins. While FedEx needs a profitable delivery business to survive, Amazon can afford to lose money on delivery and make it up with relatively free-flowing profits from Amazon Web Services and its booming ad business.
In fact, Amazon can afford, thanks to the faith and generosity of investors, to make no profits at all. No easy task, competing with that.
Is Amazon Killing the Holiday Shopping Season?
Long lines of shoppers snaking around retail stores used to be commonplace on the morning after Thanksgiving. So was the tradition of picking up a print newspaper for an early look at the Black Friday ads. But with retailers like Amazon, Nordstrom, Alibaba, and Flipkart creating their own shopping holidays, the frenzy around Black Friday and Cyber Monday has been tamped down. Is this a sign of the times or just a blip in retail’s evolution?
To find the answer, the mobile app marketing firm Liftoff and the mobile measurement company Adjust teamed up and took a deep dive into the consumer activity on shopping apps throughout the calendar year. In a new report, the firms found that with excuses to shop year round, traditional shopping holidays, like Black Friday and the New Year period, are waning in significance. These events are gradually becoming less vital for online and offline retailers, even if they remain important moments.
5 Brands Innovating with Augmented Reality
While just 12% of brands say they’re interested in exploring AR in the near-term, according to a recent Street Fight survey, that figure is expected to increase exponentially in the coming years. Part of that anticipated explosion in the AR market is thanks to companies like Facebook and Snapchat, which are aggressively building out their AR offerings. It’s also thanks to innovative thinkers at major brand retailers, who are reimagining AR technology and making it all their own. Let’s take a closer look at how five brands are innovating in the AR space.
Crack-of-Dawn Black Friday Lines Are Already a Thing of the Past, Data Shows
How is the increasing appeal of e-commerce and other digital options such as BOPIS—buy online, pick up in-store—affecting retail’s biggest day of the year? One consequence, data from Reveal Mobile indicates, is the end of the notoriously colossal lines that used to mark the beginning of Black Friday.
LBMA Podcast: Amazon’s Search Re-Targeting, Target’s Use of Runerra
Listen to This Week in Location Based Marketing, a weekly video podcast from the Location Based Marketing Association with Asif Khan & Aubriana Lopez. On the show: Amazon’s search re-targeting, Target using Runerra, Intraposition raises $1.5M, Buick integrates Yelp, Walmart goes with maps and faster checkout, Macy’s invests in VR roll-out.
Street Fight Daily: Foursquare’s Machine Learning-Based Attribution, Duopoly’s Damage Control
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Spotify, TGI Friday’s Enlist Foursquare for Machine Learning-Backed Measurement… Facebook Demands Advertisers Have Consent for Email/Phone Targeting… Google Reboots Advertising Tools to Give Users More Control Over Their Data…
BOOM: Multi-location Target from 1902 to the Future
We have no shortage of companies that go BUST. Just in the past few days, we covered the demise of Bed Bath & Beyond and Jenny Craig. The failure of multi-location brands cannot be attributed just to digital options, consumer trend shifts, and bad hires or financial bets. More complex factors seem to go into […]