Sam's Club, eSoles taking footcare kiosks on cross-country tour

August 24, 2009

Sam's Club and eSoles Custom Footbeds are taking eSoles' 3D TruCapture kiosk scanning systems to Sam's locations across the United States in a series of "road…

Chico's adds live help to its e-tail sites

by James Bickers — Editor, Networld Alliance

August 24, 2009

Chico's, which operates three online retail brands (www.chicos.com, www.soma.com and www.WhiteHouseBlackMarket.com), is adding an integrated live help…

Luxury retail at a crossroads

Shattered by heavy discounting, luxury retailers now need to focus on two distinct customer types - those looking for branded items at a lower price, and the…

Discounting while preserving the brand

Why retailers need to focus on intelligent promotions, rather than across-the-board discounts.

Breaking retail's addiction to discounting

When retailers emphasize price above all else, everybody loses. Author Kate Newlin offers some alternatives to "okay, available and cheap."

Luxury retailers need to personalize the online experience

by James Bickers — Editor, Networld Alliance

August 13, 2009

Shopping a luxury retailer is a singular experience — the setting, the products, the (hopefully) excellent service. But most of those things go away when…

Thomas Pink, Warehouse merge channels with BT

by James Bickers — Editor, Networld Alliance

August 12, 2009

British luxury shirt maker Thomas Pink and high-street retailer Warehouse have implemented the BT Expedite multi-channel solution to link their online and…

Thinking beyond traditional retail packaging

How retailers are mixing packaging with interactive technology to connect with consumers.

Microsoft unveils retail store logo

by James Bickers — Editor, Networld Alliance

August 9, 2009

Late last month, Microsoft filed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to protect the image you see at the right. The class status for the…

Why good customer service is like billiards

Retail Doc Bob Phibbs explains why customer service staff need to scatter around the customer, like pool balls reacting to the cue.

Best Buy turns Sunday circulars into interactive 3D demos

by James Bickers — Editor, Networld Alliance

August 6, 2009

Electronics retailer Best Buy has quietly unveiled a new interactive domain, www.BestBuyin3D.com, which turns the company's Sunday circulars into impressive…

Zytronic bringing interactive retail deployment to Asia

August 5, 2009

U.K.-based Zytronic, a display technology manufacturer, has announced its selection by digital media company Yeahpoint for an interactive project with…

How to catch male shoppers: Market to women

The men's grooming market is set to explode, and retailers can reach it more directly by marketing to women.

Luxury retailers expanding the reach of their 'secret sales'

by James Bickers — Editor, Networld Alliance

August 2, 2009

The New York Times reports on the growing incidence of luxury retailers taking their "secret sales" and making them not-so-secret, in order to actually move…

Hardware retailer seeks to boost profits with digital signage

July 30, 2009

Scandinavia's largest hardware store chain, XL-BYG, has announced the launch of a digital signage network in its stores after a three-month trial revealed…

Opinion: Why customer satisfaction surveys don't work

With 95 percent of our cognitive processing handled by the subconscious, how much value is there in surveys that probe the other five percent?

Opinion: IKEA is the 'least sustainable retailer on the planet'

by James Bickers — Editor, Networld Alliance

July 26, 2009

Ellen Ruppel Shell, contributing editor to The Atlantic and author of "Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture," has published a scathing indictment of…

Pop-up shops becoming mainstream

by James Bickers — Editor, Networld Alliance

July 23, 2009

The Economist has published a brief exploration of the concept of pop-up shops, temporary stores set up by retailers in unexpected locations — from abandoned…

Borders adding teen sections, taking real estate away from music/DVD departments

by James Bickers — Editor, Networld Alliance

July 21, 2009

Borders, the second largest bookstore chain in the United States, is taking away some floor space from its music and DVD departments in order to build new…

AT&T completes makeover of 2,200 retail locations

by James Bickers — Editor, Networld Alliance

July 20, 2009

The Apple Insider blog reports that the massive makeover of more than 2,200 AT&T U.S. retail locations is complete. The stores now offer netbooks in…