Joseph Turner, UK, Selects Elucid

Sanderson, the publicly owned UK provider of multi-channel retail software, has implemented its Elucid system at Joseph Turner, a leading retailer of high quality men's wear. The Yorkshire-based fashion company operates through multiple channels, including mail order catalog, online retail, and a factory shop.

Joseph Turner selected the Elucid system to support the company’s ambitious expansion plans, which include the launch of their first-ever women's wear catalog, as well as to support the long-term growth of their mail order and online businesses and strengthen operational visibility and control across the company.
 

Elucid integrates ecommerce, ePOS, and mail order sales with back office operations in one single IT solution. Real-time integration of Joseph Turner’s sales with the Elucid back office system ensures fast sales order processing, prompt order despatching, and real-time stock control, increasing operational efficiencies. In addition, Joseph Turner is benefiting from new management information dashboards for more effective decision making, reliable and accurate stock availability on their Website, and a tokenized payment gateway for increased transaction security.

Crossview Sees Improvements in SoMo Markting

CrossView, Inc., a  cross-channel commerce solutions and services provider, released the results of its 2012 Cross-Channel Readiness survey that looked at retailers across a variety of categories, gauging improvements and declines in enabling customers to shop in-store, online, in call centers and via mobile with a consistent brand experience.

This year’s study showed improvement in several key areas from last year, particularly in mobile commerce, social sharing and consistency in marketing promotions.

In an analysis of four touchpoints— online, in-store, call center and mobile—retailers could score up to 280 points, and those surveyed had a combined average of 177 points, with Best Buy achieving a perfect score. Other findings highlighted in a detailed report on the survey include:

• 92 percent of retailers enabled social sharing in their web stores – up from 88 percent in 2011. 
• 79 percent of retailers offered the same marketing promotion across all touchpoints in 2012 – up from 65 percent in 2011.   
• 72 percent of retailers offered ratings and reviews in their web stores – a 39 percent rise year over year.

Big Mobile Gains
The most pronounced move was in the area of mobile commerce. In 2011, only 12 percent of retailers offered shoppers a mobile application for the smartphone. This jumped to 56 percent in 2012. 

This year’s survey shows a steady beat of progress,” said Mark Fodor, chief executive officer, CrossView. While the needle didn’t move terribly far, it registers in the right direction in a few key areas. What’s clear to us in our work with leading brands is that no touchpoint is viewed as a separate entity by consumers – each is an extension of the same brand. So, consistency is critical, fitting hand in glove with an effective cross-channel strategy.“

Each retailer was evaluated via a mystery shopping approach. A variety of criteria were used, including consistency of pricing and promotions, access to customer profile information, merchandising, and, to the extent possible, overall parity of experience between touchpoints.

About CrossView: CrossView is a premier provider of cross-channel commerce solutions and services that enable a personalized shopping experience that unifies the Web, stores, call centers, mobile devices, and other channels on a single, flexible platform. 

MasterCard Acquires Truaxis For Offer Management

MasterCard has announced the acquisition of Truaxis, a Redwood City, CA-based provider of credit and debit card-linked offers to consumers through merchants and financial institutions.

“The offer and rewards industry is rapidly evolving as consumers have demonstrated their desire for customized offers and savings that truly matter to their individual lifestyles,” said Tim Murphy, chief product officer, MasterCard. “By adding Truaxis’ expertise, its intellectual property and a talented team of software engineers to MasterCard, we increase our capabilities to offer merchants and financial institutions a solution that helps them better connect with consumers while evolving the model from the traditional coupon or daily deals offers programs that are popular today.”

ChannelAdvisor Announces 2012 Autumn Release

ChannelAdvisor, a global eCommerce software provider that helps retailers be seen and sell more across online channels, has announced its 2012 Autumn Release, introducing a new feature to manage Google Shopping, along with enhancements to its "Repricer" technology and Marketplaces solution.

Google Shipping Technology
Central to this year’s Autumn Release is ChannelAdvisor’s Google Shopping technology that was created to overcome the challenge of managing and optimizing Google’s Product Listing Ads (PLAs), which are the foundation of Google’s new commercial marketing program.  Combining the power of ChannelAdvisor’s feed management software with reporting and optimization technology specific to PLAs, this new offering provides retailers a unified platform to manage this important channel.

“Google has been one of the most successful marketing outlets for our customers, and the launch of Google Shopping presents an exciting opportunity for us,” commented Scot Wingo, CEO of ChannelAdvisor. “Our experience in the industry and established technology allowed us to respond to the new Google Shopping program with a powerful feature that will help retailers be more strategic and successful on this essential online channel.”

Rule-based Pricing Adjustments
The Autumn Release also introduces enhancements to ChannelAdvisor’s Repricer, a feature that offers rule-based price adjustments on Amazon. By improving the functionality of the Repricer, retailers are now able to implement more profitable strategies by repricing their most important items at faster frequencies.

Unlike other repricer tools in the industry, ChannelAdvisor’s enhanced feature includes predictive capabilities that enable retailers to test each individual product in real time to gauge performance, and then make adjustments accordingly.

“Price is one of the determining factors in winning the Amazon Buy Box, so we have made some powerful changes to our Repricer feature,” commented Link Walls, director of product management at ChannelAdvisor. “With the ability to employ advanced strategies, the Repricer is helping our customers succeed and be more profitable on Amazon.”

ChannelAdvisor has also augmented its Marketplaces solution to provide retailers additional support for established marketplaces like eBay as well as new and emerging marketplaces such as Newegg, Sears, OneStopPlus.com and Best Buy. Retailers will benefit from a variety of enhancements such as new functionality that enables a more efficient listing process for their products.