

In-store and online customer tracking: is it useful or is it stalking?
The other day I noticed that my Tesco shopping trolley had a monitoring device on it. On the back of the basket there was a small black box with a sign on it that said, “We’re working to understand how customers shop so we can serve you better.” Yikes, I am being tracked! Digging into it deeper, being physically tracked through a store isn’t that unusual, it’s called “indoor positioning” and sophisticated retailers are using this capability. With the help of the Wi-Fi signal


Frictionless Transactions Pave a Smooth Path for Online Retailers
Today’s buzz phrase in e-commerce is “frictionless transactions”. Why is there a heightened interest in smooth functioning e-commerce? Well, it has to do with where consumers are in the e-commerce technology adoption curve. Using Everett Rogers’s technology adoption lifecycle, we’ve moved past the “early adopters” and in fact, are hitting the plateau in the “early majority” phase. Today’s online shopper not only includes the online bargain hunter, but also the time-poor consu


Digital’s new relationship with brick-and-mortar
There has been a noticeable change in the way we buy. While in the past we may have flipped through the pages of a magazine or browsed the shelves of a store for inspiration, today we are getting these great ideas from places that didn’t exist a few years ago, like Pinterest or blogs. Digital plays an important role in this shopping journey and it isn’t always about finding the best price. This new paradigm isn’t really about the mundane purchases like groceries and household


LoopPay and Samsung Helping to Close the Loop in Omnichannel Shopping
The tectonic plates of ecommerce are moving again, this time with Samsung’s acquisition of LoopPay, a mobile wallet technology. The tech giant announced it will build LoopPay into its devices and build a holistic mobile wallet. That means Apple, Google and Samsung all have mobile payment solutions. And, not surprisingly all three manufacture mobile devices, albeit Google’s mobile device is really Motorola Mobility. Easy mobile payment is one of the cornerstones for omnichanne