Cognitive Capabilities for Online Merchants

Interesting to see Watson derived capabilities being used for  merchandising and marketing data insights.

" ... IBM ...  today announced new commerce capabilities that help online merchants easily gain the insights needed to evaluate category and product performance and make quick and effective merchandising decisions. Leveraging cognitive capabilities from Watson Analytics, IBM Commerce Insights allows practitioners to gain a real-time view into customer behavior and market factors that are impacting their ... "

Building Commerce Anywhere Models

In Retailwire: Good overview of the topic.  It is the big retailers that are starting to understand and leverage this.

" ... The classic multi-channel retail business model has recently been eclipsed by a "commerce anywhere" approach. Many retailers have yet to adapt their operations to this new reality, and those that are on their way have taken vastly different paths. ... " 

Old Grocery Lists

I worked for some time on the psychology and technology of the simple grocery list.  Now it has emerged, Michaelangelo's handwritten grocery list.  How much have we generally evolved since the sixteenth century? I wish I had this for an example years ago.

Shopping Pattern Tracking

In the WSJ: (May require registration)   An area we experimented with for some time.  Determining shopper behavior. Not necessarily tracking personal information, but how shoppers in general reacted to retail spaces.  Common for a long time.  Good recent overview.

Retailers and Private Label Packaging

In Foodprocessing: " ... As retailers put more emphasis on private-label products, they are relying on packaging that sets their merchandise apart, instead of mimicking national brands. Target, for example, has created an identity for its Simply Balanced brand that uses whimsical photography, clean lines and nutrition information ... " 

Retailing, Brands and Consumer Experience

In the coming weeks I will be passing along some of the excellent work by correspondent Phil Hendrix.   Here is a set of slides on Retailing, Brands and the Consumer Experience (slides; excerpts from presentation to Clorox iConnect Conference, May 2013)

Philip E. Hendrix, Ph.D. Director, immr and GigaOm Research analyst
phil.hendrix@immr.org  |  770.612.1488 (O)  | 678.294.8017 (M)  |  www.immr.org | Twitter: www.twitter.com/phil_hendrix

Dieticians at the Supermarket

In AdAge:  Good piece on another example of linking related expertise to the retail interaction.  This may be an area where the personal touch could work well.  The article has excellent detail.

New Science of Retailing

A book I had missed when it came out earlier this year: The New Science of Retailing: How Analytics are Transforming the Supply Chain and Improving Performance by Marshall Fisher and Ananth Raman. Discovered in a review in the HBR. Note to publisher: Send a review copy and I will publish a more detailed review.

I have heard Marshall Fisher talk several times and have been impressed by the well positioned and yet practical analytics approaches he demonstrates. Worth taking a further look at. See also his Wharton site.