Guest Blog By Mike Heffring

You can’t win if you don’t play. You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take…

No matter how you phrase it, this adage reigns true in all aspects of marketing, especially when talking about the ever-changing social media sphere. Many companies today still feel like social content cannot be mapped to ROI, so they don’t take the risk. But companies who have a strong grasp on what drives social success have proven that this is simply not true. Expion analyzed the Facebook strategies of 10 retailers to find out which brands are winning when it comes to the Facebook marketing game and which are sitting on the sidelines.

In the analysis we looked at a few key metrics including:

• Total Fan Actions: This represents the total number of fan actions (the sum of comments, likes and shares) generated by each brand in Q1 to show which retailers were creating the most fan engagement in terms of sheer volume.
• Fan Actions per Post: This shows the average number of fan actions generated by each Facebook post that the retail brands published in Q1. It demonstrates how effective each individual post.

A Quantity Approach – Walmart and Victoria’s Secret

While Burberry may have generated the most fan actions per post, it’s really Victoria’s Secret and Walmart that are winning amongst the brands measured. Each brand generated over 5 million fan actions on Facebook during Q1, which is more than double what Burberry produced,  and they won by repeating what works – over and over again. Both brands publish content on a frequent basis, and while it may seem like they are choosing quantity over quality, it’s a strategy that proves to be effective in terms of overall reach and engagement.

Victoria’s Secret published 220 posts in Q1 and found that “showing skin,” or posting pictures of their models, and featuring promotional items centered around Valentine’s Day generated the greatest engagement with their fans. Walmart published 413 posts and over 70 percent of them were timely, focusing on holidays and current events such as Dr. Seuss’s birthday, Easter, Game Day, St. Patrick’s Day and Valentine’s Day. The remainder of Walmart’s content included humorous photos of cats and dogs, a proven social winner, with engaging captions that sparked social conversations.

A Quality Approach – Zara and Burberry

Burberry and Zara have a completely different approach to Facebook engagement. They are focused on quality over quantity, and while each post is highly effective, there is a huge missed opportunity in terms of increasing their reach and frequency of engagement.

Zara posted a mere 11 times in Q1 so even though it’s individual posts are effective, and producing a healthy amount of fan actions per post, when looking at the total engagement it created on Facebook, it’s falling far behind. If Zara stepped up to bat more often and published content more frequently it could potentially capture a much higher share of voice on Facebook.

Burberry posted 54 times in Q1, which is a huge step up from Zara, but not enough to take on retail giants like Walmart and Victoria’s Secret. It has the highest number of fan actions per post, showing that the content its publishing is highly effective, but if it were to increase the frequency of posts by just a relatively small margin, it could create an incredibly powerful social voice and reach a much larger percentage of Facebook users.

Finding the Perfect Balance

While quality control is huge, as no one wants to be spammed by a brand, there is something to be said about creating a strong and impactful brand voice in the social media sphere. After analyzing these 10 different retailers we found that the brands who are taking a more subtle approach are missing the opportunity to capture the attention of Facebook users. Retail brands that want to implement a sound Facebook strategy need to find a balance between quality and quantity.  Victoria’s Secret is closest to this as they’ve created a balance between frequency and fan actions per post.

You don’t want to strike out, but you’ll never hit a home run unless you step up to the plate.

Mike Heffring is CMO at Expion

Guest Blog By Matt Ferrari

No business can afford system downtime. One minute lost can equal loss of revenue, customers and more. For retailers, downtime is particularly troublesome – especially considering the importance of e-commerce, which requires round-the-clock uptime in today’s global economy.

Global management consulting firm A.T. Kearney estimates global e-commerce has grown 13 percent annually over the past five years. According to a new report from the Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG), a U.K. online retail trade organization, global business-to-consumer e-commerce sales will top $1.25 trillion in 2013. On 2012’s Cyber Monday alone, online shoppers spent $1.465 billion. Mobile commerce, and the proliferation of smartphones and tablets adds new pressures to retailers’ need for an always-on business. Many smartphones are able to scan barcodes and QR codes, adding another feature to multi-channel shopping. In a study on the U.S. smartphone shopping behavior, ComScore found that 4 in every 5 smartphone users – 85.9 million in total – accessed retail content on their device during July 2012.

Perhaps the most obvious and damaging, cost of downtime to retailers is lost revenue associated with customer’s inability to transact during an outage. Target for example, has experienced multiple outages. The first crash was related to a huge surge in traffic when introducing the Missoni for Target apparel line. There were also at least two outages during last year’s holiday season, one of which (according to Rigor) lasted for about two and a half hours. The company used its Uptime Percentage Calculator (located on the Rigor homepage) to determine the outage represented a loss to Target of about $464,000.

It’s not just sales lost. While existing customers might be forgiving and wait for an outage to sort itself out, new customers are less patient. Outages impact brand perception as well, and retailers need all the help they can get to build and sustain their brands in competitive online space.

Today’s IT environments leverage virtualized infrastructures and cloud computing via private, public and hybrid models, making business continuity more complex, because applications and compute power are more fluid and dynamic. Any cloud model that’s not managed within a retailer’s own four walls is susceptible to the practices of a third party, lessening a retailer’s control over IT operations. This leads to missed opportunities in design, planning, testing and deployment of IT initiatives.

Another common misstep is implementing unique infrastructure for each application. This undermines efficiencies and increases the risk of failure and outage. Instead, companies need to take advantage of opportunities for repeatable infrastructure to drive economies of scale. Another point of failure is that for many organizations, planning and execution is non-iterative. IT must engage all stakeholders throughout the process and not just at the beginning, because requirements and expectations change. Retailers can minimize the impact of an outage through a solid disaster recovery plan. Too often, disaster recovery is an afterthought. Any time an application is built, IT departments should plan and build for that app’s disaster recovery by anticipating scenarios and defining requirements.

Many outages could be prevented with the adoption of an Always-On Design Framework, which improves availability and reliability. This framework is premised on three key tenets: reusable components that are easy to deploy and support, interactivity with stakeholders to significantly reduce the risk of project failure, and architecting application infrastructure assuming a failure will occur. It closes the gap between application design and users’ needs. With an Always-On architecture, retailers can take advantage of reusable IT components in a service catalog that can be quickly provisioned. With faster delivery of services, enterprises can focus on other business strategies. They save weeks of time in development, provisioning and training, which boosts agility, cuts operational costs and achieves greater ROI.  The framework also promotes regular evaluation, validation and prioritization of applications and services. That, in turn, aligns expectations and capabilities early in the design process.

This framework will help retailers reduce outages and mitigate damage. The Always On Design Framework is detailed in HOSTING’s publication, the  “essential Guide to Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity.” The free publication can be downloaded from the Website: www.hosting.com. There is no question that retailers should be investing in online channels as eCommerce and mobile commerce continues its exponential growth. But these channels require highly-available, reliable IT systems. Outages of any length immediately affect the bottom line. Architecting with this proven framework can help plan and deliver an IT foundation that keeps retail always on.

Matt Ferrari, CTO at HOSTING

Guest Blog by Bryan Nella

On May 1, 2013, the Wall Street Journal published an article titled “Retailers Seek Plan to Prevent Disasters,” following the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh that killed more than 400 inside. The article described a meeting in Eschborn, Germany that drew representatives from Wal-Mart, Gap, H&M and 30 other retailers and government agencies to develop a plan to prevent a repeat of the Bangladesh disaster. Separately, the European Union is also discussing bringing forth a trade action against Bangladesh and installing new measures to pressure local authorities to enforce stricter labor standards.

Another article in the Wall Street Journal showed protesters marching in the Bangladesh streets to demand the death sentence of the owner of the collapsed garment factory. Two very different worlds – the West and East – are reacting to the same challenge and although their perspectives may be diametrically different, the culprit in both instances may be the same.

In the West, brands and retailers race to meet consumer demand for fashionable yet inexpensive clothing. They turn to countries like Bangladesh that can provide them with low cost labor and a fast- growing garment workforce to fulfill orders rapidly. The goods are sufficient quality, the cost is low, and the speed of delivery works. The downside to sourcing here is the sometimes questionable workplace conditions and factory standards. Thousands of miles and the inability to walk the factory floor clouds the view of production.

In the East, in Bangladesh specifically, the garment industry has blossomed in recent years to become the number two worldwide exporter only trailing China. Because of the availability of jobs and the growing economy, Bangladesh has become a global supply chain hot spot. But with Bangladesh’s high ranking comes intense pressure to meet tight deadlines and keep cost levels down. In turn, safety and other standards can sometimes become secondary concerns. The view from the West is clouded: a brand places an order and after a number of weeks, the goods are shipped and arrive on store shelves, giving brands little insight into the reality of how the goods passed through in the production lifecycle.

However, factory workers expect more — they expect safe working conditions and standards to be upheld. At the same time, retailers share these expectations. The problem is the lack of visibility or accountability in the production lifecycle. Without visibility, no one can be held accountable to the sub-par safety and standards and enforcement cannot take place. Years ago, a retail executive could walk the floors of its factories to ensure practices were up to par, but this is no longer practical as factories are typically thousands of miles away, separating the retail executive by an ocean. With no eyes or ears on the ground, both ends of the supply chain suffer.

The culprit here is the lack of visibility and perhaps that’s where the solution begins. In today’s connected world where we can view satellite images or live streams of local highway traffic by logging onto the web, we should be able to turn the lights on in the global supply chain. Picture a retailer placing an order in an electronic portal that requires the supplier to include images of the fire escapes in all factories. Or a consumer goods company that uses an online platform to electronically monitor every party in the supply chain against denied party lists or unsafe factory databases to prevent unethical production. While today’s complex supply chains create challenges for ensuring safe and responsible production, technology can be the equalizer.

Cloud technology can put every factory anywhere on the planet on the grid. This means the retail executive can gain real-time visibility into the cutting, dying, sewing, packing and shipping processes happening at their factory across the ocean. This knowledge can prevent disasters like the Rana Plaza building collapse from happening. For trading partners in Bangladesh, this exposes their workplaces and holds them to higher standards. Cloud can allow everyone visibility into the working conditions taking place across the supply chain and nobody is kept in the dark.

Bryan Nella is Director of Corporate Communications at GT Nexus

Guest Blog by Quin D. Dodd, Esq.

Once upon a time the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) was a rather quiet federal regulatory agency, tucked away in the Washington suburb of Bethesda, Maryland.  Then came 2007, dubbed “The Year of the Recall,” with lead-contaminated toys from China grabbing weekly headlines.  Congress reacted by passing the most sweeping reforms to the laws governing the safety of children’s products since the inception of the agency—the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA).

In addition to imposing strict new limits for lead, phthalates and durable nursery products, among others, the CPSIA culminated on February 8, 2013 into what has been called “The Mother of all CPSC Regulations”— the Testing and Certification Rule (or “1107 Rule,” codified at 16 CFR 1107).  This rule sets forth very specific testing, record keeping and other requirements for U.S. importers and domestic manufacturers of children’s products – any product “primarily intended” for children 12 years old and younger.  In a nutshell, this rule requires that U.S. importers and domestic manufacturers of children’s products:

• Order CPSC-approved lab testing and certify that those products meet all applicable CPSC standards, including documenting and appropriately responding to any sample failure;
• Undertake additional testing of the product after certification and during manufacture of the product (how frequently is unspecified but must impart a “high degree of assurance” that all products meet all CPSC standards);
• Monitor and document any “material change” to the product that could affect compliance with standards; and
• Implement company policies and employee training to prevent any attempts at “undue influence” over test labs (effectively, any attempts to skew test results).

The 1107 Rule presents a unique challenge for U.S. retailers who direct-import children’s products:  they just buy and import the products; they don’t make them.  Short of opening an office in every overseas factory from which they source, how are direct-import retailers in the U.S. supposed to ensure that all these requirements are met?

The answer lies in two additional CPSC-regulations recently passed:

1.              Component Part Testing (“1109”) Rule.  This regulation allows the U.S. importer to rely on a certificate from an overseas supplier to, in turn, issue the CPSC-mandated product certificate prior to importation, so long as “due care” is exercised to ensure that the supplier did what is required of them under the 1107 Rule.  Cutting through the regulatory jargon, this means that the U.S. importer should require the overseas supplier provide proof that they undertook all the necessary activities and obtained all the necessary documentation under the 1107 Rule.

2.              HDXRF and Other “Alternative” Test Methods.  As stated, the 1107 Rule requires some testing during actual manufacture of children’s products, in addition to that for certification.  That testing, however, can be either via a third-party lab (“periodic testing”) or on-site factory (“production”) testing.   Regardless of which avenue the U.S. retailer  or supplier may choose, on February 20, 2013, the CPSC for the first time allowed High Definition X-ray Fluorescence (HDXRF) to be used for both lead paint AND substrate (content) testing.  Unlike traditional “wet chemistry,” HDXRF technology is non-destructive and available for use in both portable and benchtop instruments, making it easy to use in either a lab or factory setting. Since lead is the number one source of seizures at U.S. ports,  HDXRF represents a major cost-saving opportunity for either periodic or production testing under the 1107 Rule for both suppliers and U.S. importer-retailers.

The 1107 Rule, while complex and not necessarily a fun read, is manageable.  Just make sure you deal with it now, before the CPSC asks you why, as an importer of record, you failed to do so.

Quin Dodd is a Washington, DC attorney practicing exclusively in the area of product safety law, and formerly served as Chief of Staff of the CPSC from 2006 to 2008.  He may be reached at:  quin@quindoddlaw.com. 

Guest Blog by Lior Arussy

The Wall Street Journal recently reported on the low employee morale inherited by J.C. Penney’s returning CEO, Myron “Mike” Ullman, after the chain slashed its workforce by tens of thousands over the past year. Retail is not just a business of merchandising and discounts, as it has been portrayed by the media in the last week since the department-store chain ousted its former chief executive Ron Johnson.  Retail is a people business as well, which Mr. Johnson clearly did not understand.

Creating a new retail platform, as was attempted with the “JCP” branding platform, requires the organization to lean on its brand ambassadors.  If the transformation from J.C. Penney to JCP was executed as I’ve seen so many in the past, regardless of executive’s intentions, it probably sounded to employees as “Everything you have done so far was wrong, this is the new right.”  Or perhaps, “Even our name is old an outdated, so we’re changing it.” Even without thousands of layoffs, a poorly planned and executed transformation will quickly create low employee morale. Now imagine the thousands and thousands of employees who face customers every day. What expression do you think they have on their face? How keen are they to help their customers? What is their attitude towards confused customers who are looking for a discount?

J.C. Penney must focus on its people first.  Every day, its 116,000 employees are making decisions that will amount to its brand equity.  Every organization’s brand equity is equal to the sum total of their employees’ decisions both in front of the customer and behind the scenes on behalf of the customer. If employees are enthusiastic, passionate and caring, customers will make purchases.  People do not buy from cynical uncaring employees. (Check out www.cyncismkills.com.)

The human factor is the most elusive and challenging in every corporate strategy.  The good news is, if you unlock your workforce’s energy, they will not only meet, but exceed, your customer’s expectations. Here are my best, most heartfelt ideas for Mr. Ullman:

1. Start thinking in terms of employee engagement. Measure your workforce’s state of mind, the true pulse of the organization. Involve your employees in valuable discussions and lean on them to help strategize and design your next moves.
2. Create a cause to which people can connect. Stop designing transformations around stockholders and stakeholders. Instead, focus on fulfilling your customer’s needs and positively impacting their lives.
3. Give employees a reason to have pride in the brand. Yes, brand pride is key to your future success. Connect your people to J.C. Penney’s heritage and develop a clear program to disseminate that emotional bond throughout the organization and beyond.
4. Embrace empowerment. Equip every manager with the tools and authority to engage their employees.
5. Innovate and then innovate some more. Establish small teams across all levels of the organization and provide them a forum for generating new ideas and leading initiatives to delight customers.
6. Give employees the power to delight. Provide employees the opportunity to deliver great experiences that will increase loyalty and customer profitability.
7. Celebrate the customer heroes. Establish a sustainable culture that is committed to recognizing and rewarding its customer heroes.
8. Repeatedly connect back to the cause. Make sure employees can see the progress made on the goals to reach the organization’s vision and fulfill its higher cause.

As we all know, history often repeats itself. The now defunct Circuit City fired its top sales people because they were too costly and just two years later filed for bankruptcy. Any company strategy that does not embrace fully the role of the organization’s employees, fails to understand a very simple truth.  In the moment of truth, when a customer and employee connect, the brand is created. How the employee chooses to engage the customer at that moment of truth, will determine if the corporate strategy will succeed or fail.

Apple’s retail success was highly dependent on the spirit of its employees. There was no evidence that a similar spirit was developed at the JCP brand.  Whatever spirit the J.C. Penney workforce had a year ago has been most likely destroyed a strategy that undermined them and not only by the job cuts. Although it’s easy to rely heavily on merchandising, store design and slick advertising, take heed that employee morale is a force that cannot be ignored.

The opportunity that Mr. Ullman is inheriting is quite significant; if he can take the 116,000 J.C. Penney employees and inspire them to be brand ambassadors, he will create a tsunami of positive brand loyalty and profits.  The good news is that with the right approach, morale can be turned and cynicism can be transformed to passion. I wish Mr. Ullman good luck on his journey.

Lior Arussy is CEO of Strativity

Guest Blog by David Zahn

Conventional wisdom in retailers and FMCG manufacturers focuses on growing the business by maximizing market share and increasing conversion among existing shoppers /consumers.  By targeting this population, it is assumed to be more efficient and productive than trying to convince those do not currently shop at a store or in a category to become shoppers at that outlet or in that aisle.

However, for REAL growth to occur, we have to actually leverage the marketplace where we have been hesitant to go – at NON-CONSUMPTION. Historically and conventionally, we have believed that it is harder to convert a NON-BUYER into a BUYER than it is to get someone to switch. And, while there is both intuitive logic to that and plenty of proof to lean on; that does not grow the market in total. For that to occur, the shopper has to make incremental purchases and not just swap from one to another.

Looking at the matrix below, labeled Four Types of Shopping, you see in the lower-left quadrant  how the shopper makes routinized purchases that are not impacted by the information currently available from the store or manufacturer, nor does the shopper particularly seek additional information.  Moving to the right; the lower right-hand quadrant shows the shopper seeking a solution or to meet a job, but being stymied by the lack of news or communication from the store or brand on how to accomplish that job with the products currently available.  Moving up to the upper-left quadrant; the manufacturer and store focus on switching behaviors between existing options – and while it may re-allocate the shares, profits, and sales dollars among competitors, it is not creating growth or incremental sales of any substantial amount.  The only way to grow the TOTAL business in a sustained way is to provide context, information, decision-support, and assistance to the shopper through an improved Ecosystem that aligns with the shopper’s desire to accomplish a new job or an existing job in a more successful way. Therefore, what is required is a better understanding of the jobs the shopper wishes to master and what requirements must be in place for that to lead to a purchase of a product (or combination of products purchased in concert).  Simply relying on so-called “causal data” or studying “panel data” will be helpful; but insufficient in that it is not tracking and seeking to understand the decision-making process of the shopper.  It is attempting to link correlational data (a sale occurred under this condition) and assumes it is directly responsible for the purchase.  In fact, that is rarely accurate.  The missing piece is an understanding what the purchase is designed to provide – and not simply the occurrence of a purchase.  By better understanding what the shopper is attempting to accomplish, and participating in that vision, the retailer and manufacturer can better position their offerings to accomplish that outcome.

As an example, review the following example of a “typical shopper’s experience.”Now, imagine if Mary were able to engage in her pursuit in a way that resembled a mutual effort.

If the store and brand understood what she was seeking to do and helped her think through it and make a more confident choice, they could provide the right resources and tools to aid her (and build their own businesses at the same time!).

The process is a nine-step process as defined below that begins with identifying the shopper’s job(s) and then working to identify how to best provide that within the context of the business’ capabilities, strategies, resources, and commitment.

 The technology/process depicted above contains a tool that focuses insights and prospective actions through a “QFD-Like” technique (QFD = Quality Function Deployment – a process used by progressive innovators to design quality into products to meet user demand) that allows for easy identification of successful initiatives and gap analysis hampering success from occurring.  This technique allows for quicker, less expensive, and more accurate decisions regarding: new item introductions, category management initiatives, shopper marketing activities, and in-store activities.

For more information on the process, please contact David Zahn, of ZAHN Consulting, LLC at davidzahn@zahnconsulting.com.

Guest Blog By David King

Many retailers still rely on fairly simple rules to target merchandising offers to customers. Historically, the bulk of targeted customers are those who have either made purchases in the product category or within a specific brand in the category. Makes sense, right? It’s a tried and true formula that works because such customers are likely to repurchase in the same category or brand. Yet, this approach does little grow the category share; The traditionally targeted customers are already spending in the category and new customers aren’t being enticed to expand their spending habits within the category.

Recently, retailers have found success looking at “winnable share” at the product category level. With this approach, the potential of each customer to spend in a category is estimated and the more potential a customer has, the better the target.

For example, let’s say we have two customers: “Bob” who spends $60 per month on bread and “Mary” who spends $10 per month. The traditional approach would favor Bob for promotional offers, but that $60 might mean that his spending potential is maxed out. In other words, targeting Bob with a promotion will not increase his spending in the category because $60 represents the most that he would ever spend. By contrast, Mary might have the same $60 potential, but $50 is being spent at another store. She has a much higher winnable share than Bob. Naturally, this approach will also uncover some high-spending customers that have still more potential.

Here’s a quick chart of what we might see:

Customer             Current Spending                                Estimated Potential                         Winnable Share

Bob                          $60.00                                                        $60.00                                                $0.00

Mary                        $10.00                                                        $60.00                                                $50.00

Sharon                    $50.00                                                        $80.00                                                $30.00

An immediate question that we face is whether those customers with a higher winnable share will respond to promotions. In most cases, they do, which means that a category manager can both generate near-term sales and build higher share.

Having an understanding of customer potential at the category level also enables two additional merchandising activities.

First, it provides managers with an overall potential for the customer base by category. This allows them to work with vendors on designing merchandising programs that achieve the best sales outcomes, both for the vendor and for the store. On a macro level, it allows management to estimate whether their potential category share is growing or shrinking and why. For instance, perhaps winnable share is stable, but sales are struggling due to ineffective promotions. Management teams can use this information to fix the fundamental efficiency issues.

A second use is in designing cross-category promotions. Let’s say that a retailer is thinking about promoting denim to sweater buyers. We would want to use our intelligence about customers’ winnable share in denim to select customers. If we’re actually making an offer in both categories — “buy a sweater and jeans together and get 20% off both” — then winnable share in both categories is useful.

In short, retailers and merchandisers are accomplishing two primary objectives as a result of moving toward understanding each customer’s winnable share by category: driving sales for current promotions by selecting the customers that will respond; and building gains in category share by pulling in new customers that would be ignored by traditional targeting efforts.

David King is executive vice president at Fulcrum

With the increase usage of mobile gadgets with built-in web browsers in them, there’s no better time to go digital than this era. Your products catalog may no longer be as effective as it used to.

According to studies gleaned by eMarketer, mobile shopping apps may have some influence in your relationship with your customers. Additionally, mobile device users revealed that utilizing a shopping app enhanced their relationship with their favorite brands. And most of them liked the brand even more after using a shopping app.

In another research by Flurry, consumers spend more time on retailers’ mobile apps comparing prices, discovering new products, daily deals, and making purchases. Furthermore, one out of five mobile users confirmed they would download a shopping app on their mobile device in order to get acquainted with a brand.

This indicates that mobile device users utilize apps for discovering products. Instead of visiting a brand’s website or a nearby store, they prefer to download a brand’s mobile shopping app to examine its products or offers. In a nutshell, mobile shopping apps now serve as catalogs.

The Benefit of Developing a Mobile Shopping App for Your Business

Companies that have developed mobile shopping apps have been able to retain lots of their customers. This is because they keep their clients updated with new and relevant offers via their mobile apps. And customers have demonstrated their loyalty through purchases made directly from their shopping apps.

Factors to consider before developing mobile shopping apps

Now that you’re aware of the power of mobile shopping apps in retail business, it’s about time you consider developing one for your business.

The first step to developing mobile shopping apps is to understand your target audience, what they want, and the technologies that they like, and how best you can offer them a good user experience.

One way to achieve this is by identifying the outlets that your customers are likely using, and taking the time to explore these platforms to gain an understanding of each user experience.

Another simple but effective way is to emulate your competitors. You can download their mobile shopping apps on your mobile gadget and familiarize yourself with it. Based on that, you’ll be able to come up with ideas for your own shopping apps, and even improve some areas that you think your competitors have flaws.

Additionally, discussing your goal with mobile application developers will help you gain lots of insights from them. Being professionals in application development, app developers are idea for offering valuable advice to achieve your overall goal.

How to promote your shopping apps after creation

With millions of apps available for download out there, it can be extremely difficult for new mobile apps to gain footing after development. Fortunately, there are some strategies that you can use to make your new mobile app spread like wildfire. The following are a few ways you can promote your new mobile apps.

Make your apps available on apps stores, promote them on your social media outlets, and encourage referrals through your clients. According to a survey of mobile apps users, 42% said they usually discover new shopping apps at their favorite apps stores. 37% also said that they hear about new apps from friends who have utilized the apps before. Furthermore, social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter are proven to be powerful tools for promoting new mobile shopping apps.

In this technology driven era, relying so much on traditional product catalogs for promoting your products and new offers may affect your sales tremendously. With the increase usage of mobile gadgets for doing almost everything in our lives these days, mobile shopping apps are the new tools for promoting products and new offers. And retailers who are using shopping apps are already reaping the benefits.

Saeed Sikiru is a prolific freelance blogger. He’s the editor of a content marketing blog where he offers his freelance blogging service. If you have a blog that needs regular content, hire Saeed to write quality and persuasive articles for you.

Guest blog by Jennifer Borden

We’re a few months removed from the holidays and, once again, gift cards were one of the top gift items of the season. From Yankee Swaps to the last minute gift for your babysitter, it’s easy to understand why: they’re convenient and one size fits all. But the question is, how many of those cards will never be redeemed? Despite their popularity, it’s projected that $2 billion of gift cards went unused in 2012.

That’s unfortunate for the recipient of the gift card. But what about the retailer?

There are legitimate questions as to how, when and by whom the gift cards should be regulated. There is ongoing contention between the federal and state governments as to who should be regulating gift cards.  New Jersey is in the midst of a multi-year dispute in federal court over whether national retailers should be subjected to onerous state requirements that clearly conflict with United States Supreme Court precedent.  The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has weighed in, along with other federal agencies, and the newly formed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is challenging states’ regulation in this arena.  This presents a huge compliance and unclaimed property predicament for retailers, especially on the heels of so many changes over the last couple of years that leave companies more vulnerable to audits and escheatment than they thought they were.

So how do retailers try to attack the challenge?

In many cases the legal entity that issues gift cards for retailers is incorporated in a state that does not escheat gift cards.  Since gift cards are typically “owner unknown”, and the property escheats to the holder’s state of incorporation, unredeemed gift cards should be exempt from escheatment. But states are saying, not so fast. Occasionally these special purpose entities were not established properly and therefore can’t withstand audit scrutiny. In one case a major retailer did not follow corporate formalities and the entity issuing the gift card had been administratively dissolved by its state of incorporation.  Without the retailer even knowing it, the gift cards that were issued by the legally defunct entity may have lost the benefit of the exemption, potentially resulting in millions of dollars in liability.

In another case, gift cards were issued as a result of loyalty programs, so the issuer knew the identity of the recipients.  Do these cards still get the benefit of being “owner unknown” ‘and subject to the favorable escheat rules of the state of incorporation of their issuer?  Or is the retailer now once again subject to the laws of each jurisdiction in which it has customers?

Another fairly new risk is the abundance of third party involvement in the issuing of gift cards. When a store like CVS or Walgreens carries gift cards from a variety of retailers and restaurants, who’s obligated to the value held on those cards, and what is the value that is potentially escheatable? Is it the retailer who accepted the cash for the card?  Or is the retailer where the card will ultimately be presented?  What is the amount that is potentially at risk on a $25 card that does not get redeemed?  Is it the full $25 paid, even though the issuer may only receive about $20 after paying for distribution and sales commissions?

So if you’re a retailer, how can you protect yourself from audits and unclaimed property violations if you are issuing gift cards to your consumers? The same way you get a tune-up for your car every 30,000 miles. It doesn’t hurt to do a check up every 24 months. It’s likely that there have been regulation changes or lobbying that could impact your exemption. You also want to ensure your SPE is holding strong, all corporate formalities are being respected and that you’re still protected as anticipated when the SPE was formed.

Jennifer Borden is EVP and general counsel specializing in unclaimed property issues for UPRR. She can be found at uprrinc.com.

Guest Blog by Steve Wellen

Mobile retail was sometimes perceived as a bandwagon, and it has turned out to be the boat that no one can afford to miss. Now, retailers are discovering that even with a mobile site, they need better data to turn opportunity into revenue.

Back in 2009, Forrester Research Group forecasted that online retail would reach $229 billion in 2013. It was a cautiously optimistic gauge that had us all crossing our fingers in the heat of America’s mini-Depression.

But the economy had even better plans than Forrester—or anyone—could have anticipated. In 2012, online retail hit $226 billion, and Forrester now anticipates $252 billion before we raise our glasses to a new year again.

And in the middle of it all, we find mobile retail.

In a recent retail article, 14 executives weighed in on 2013 retail predictions, and everyone mentioned mobile retailing, showing that mobile has graduated from “up-and-coming” to “here-and-now.” During Thanksgiving 2012, 24% of consumers used a mobile device to visit a retailer’s site, up from 14.3% in 2011 (IBM report). Black Friday alone saw 16.3% of all purchases conducted on a mobile device. At an invitation-only Salesforce event in New York on February 26, Marc Benioff said that every company is now a software company—we all have apps, we all have to deal with UI, and our customers all hold our brands ransom for an exceptional mobile experience.

But the increase in mobile activity and mobile demand doesn’t mean that we’re doing mobile better. For example, we see that JC Penney has had a mobile version of its site and yet reported double digit losses both online and in store. Google pretty much is the Internet, but their Nexus 4 retail launch was a disaster. Showrooming and other cross-channel challenges continue to get in the way of success for online retailers everywhere.

So if having a mobile site isn’t the differentiator between online success and failure, then what is?

First of all, there is no single great differentiator—otherwise known as a “silver bullet.” But from my perspective at Domo, I would posit that the online retailers we work with see a massive shift in opportunity and revenue when they are able to get a handle on their data.

Here are the data problems that retailers face:

1. Big data, per se, does not equal big insights into customer needs.
2. Disconnected data sources leave holes in customer info that need to be filled.
3. Investments in new data sources aren’t delivering the expected value.

It’s not a data quantity issue, and it’s not even a data quality issue. It’s a data access and reporting issue. Most retailers have plenty of data; they just can’t get it how they want it, when they need it.

Collecting data, assembling data and analyzing data are still several steps away from actually using data to improve your mobile site. Disparate data sources are good at telling you a few things about your mobile sites—CTR, time on page, page views, cart abandonment, etc. But connecting it to social media, finance, fulfillment, POS, cross-channel metrics, and more is a matter of static spreadsheets, human error and late numbers. And that’s where brands stumble.

When retailers can get updated metrics from all their data in one place, mobile websites and apps will start to provide the experience customers want and the revenue opportunities that retailers need.

Steve Wellen is VP of Client Services with Domo