Contactless payment rumoured to embedded in the iphone 5

Contactless payments have been getting a bit of attention in the last few days. The idea that consumers could pay for something simply by swiping their mobile phones against an in-store device sounds enticing, and mobile phone operators are certainly keen to push ahead with the technology.

Everything Everywhere, the company formed when Orange and T-Mobile merged, has recently announced the launch of a smartphone with Near Field Communication (NFC) technology embedded in it, due this summer. And there are rumours circulating that Apple’s iPhone 5 – to be launched this year – will also be capable of paying for small purchases by swiping it against a reader, in the same way that Oyster cards are used for travel on London public transport.

The phone releases might be high profile, but if retailers don’t invest in the devices to read NFC it won’t take off. There are concerns - NFC has a limit of £15 per transaction, making it less useful for any retailer whose average purchase is bigger than that. Plus there are big initial costs, with the devices being expensive, and big running costs, with bank charges for NFC transactions currently high. Steve Thomas, CTO at BT Expedite, says there are also cheaper alternatives that do the same job. Maybe the momentum from phone manufacturers will be enough to carry it, but it seems unlikely if retailers can’t be convinced.

Rebecca Thomson, Retail Week

Amazon Opens Shops On Facebook

It’s about time that one of the earliest pioneers of online commerce opened up shops on Facebook. Yesterday Amazon’s subsidiary Quidisi opened up a few stores selling household items on the social network.

Quidsi, which was acquired by Amazon for $540 million last Autumn, has created electronic commerce pages on Facebook for Soap.com, BeautyBar.com and Diapers.com. These are companies owned by Quidsi, and their social network presence together amounts to about 60,000 fans.

When you go to Soap.com’s Facebook page, you see a tab called “My List” where you can search for and purchase products all within the social network. The shopping cart on the site looks like a more sophisticated, cleaner version of the one on Amazon.com, and lets you confirm what you want to purchase. The tool also tracks your order, and encourages you to “like” the product.

This is clearly a trend that's growing. JC Penny already having a facebook store and other retailers following closely behind. If customers are too time poor to go to your store, take your store to them!

London Retailers use Augmented Reality in a virtual scavenger hunt.

Genius Idea: Buzz has been big around augmented reality, but few companies have figured out a way to turn it into an effective marketing tool. We’ve seen brands invoke everything from Iron Man masks to musical cheese snacks in efforts to incorporate augmented reality into their marketing plans. But none of these ideas exactly created the AdWords of augmented reality.

GoldRun, which launched in November with a campaign for H&M, comes closer to creating a marketing platform that will be useful across multiple industries. The app allows brands to create virtual scavenger hunts. When consumers download the free GoldRun app and sign up to follow a campaign or “run,” they can collect virtual goods from physical locations using their phone’s camera. During the H&M campaign, for instance, users could collect a different virtual item from the brand’s fall/winter collection by snapping a photo of it in front of each of its 10 Manhattan locations. Doing so resulted in an instant 10% discount on any H&M purchase.

The platform’s agility is its greatest strength. AirWalk used the platform to build virtual pop-up stores in locations in Washington Square Park and Venice Beach at which app users could purchase a special edition shoe from its website (VP of Business Development Shailesh Rao calls it “V-Commerce”). The NBC’s Today Show ran a scavenger hunt for virtual items in Rockefeller Plaza. Esquire Magazine is planning a campaign that will virtually place its February cover model, Brooklyn Decker, in more than 700 Barnes and Noble stores. Other planned campaigns range from the Sundance Film Festival to Gwen Stefani’s perfume line.

GoldRun provides a more interactive and customizable approach to location-based advertising than check-in games like Foursquare (foursquare) and Gowalla (Gowalla). Campaigns, in addition to distributing special offers, include an option for users to create interesting photos (items in the H&M campaign, for instance, were positioned in a way in which they could be virtually “tried on”). Users share these photos through their Facebook (Facebook) profiles, which is more valuable for the brand than shared check-in information.

Given how eager brands have been to adopt location-based marketing through check-in apps, it’s not a surprise that many are eager to run campaigns on the GoldRun app. Rao says that more than 40 companies from various industries have approached the as of now self-funded startup about running a campaign. It will be interesting to see if consumers respond with equivalent enthusiasm.



Posted from Mashable

Manhatten Mecca

Over the last 12 months, Times Square in the heart of Manhattan has consolidated its position as the destination in New York for casual American fashion, but there are new stores right across the Big Apple

The phrase a ‘New York minute’ is usually taken to mean that time is compressed in the Big Apple when compared with other metropolises.

And things do seem to move a little faster here than in most other locations. But there is a sense of the permanent about much of the city’s retail offer. Landmarks abound, whether it’s Macy’s (still billed as the world’s largest department store), Bloomingdale’s or even the more recent Apple store at the southern tip of Central Park. It’s hard to escape the feeling that retailers who set up shop here are in for the long game.

A surprise therefore to find that in Times Square, the heart of Manhattan, much has changed during the last year. This is now the home of the megastore and over the last year Los Angeles-headquartered fashion outfit Forever 21 has opened the largest apparel store in Manhattan, while next door, Disney has opened a flagship that leaves what is on view in Europe somewhat in the shade. And to cap things, local talent Aéropostale, a national chain that operates from New York, has taken a site with a long sweeping frontage. The three newcomers join American Eagle, in creating what must be one of the most flashy retail locations on the planet - a destination that features astoundingly large screens on which ever-changing content makes it difficult to work out where to look.

There are, of course, other places to get a fresh retail perspective on New York. Uptown, in East Harlem, Target has opened its first Manhattan store, while the Brit invasion that has seen Topshop, All Saints (mobbed last Saturday), Ted Baker and Superdry setting up store in SoHo over the last two years has continued with the arrival of a Dr Martens shop in the same downtown neighbourhood.

There have also been a fair number of smaller, branded, shops that have taken the plunge, ranging from fashion, courtesy of designer Marc Jacobs with a Bookmarc store, to girl-friendly bike shop Adeline Adeline in the city’s modish Tribeca district.

Back to Times Square and the vast crowds of local and out-of-town shoppers attest to the fact that for a significant number this is the current retail destination of choice.

Disney


The largest Disney store in the US opened in November with two floors and about 12,000 sq ft of selling space. The stats are noteworthy in their own right. The six letters forming the word Disney above the door weigh a little over 2,000lbs and the 65 ft-high digital screen above this is “the highest resolution screen on Times Square”, according to Disney spokeswoman Shawn Turner. This means that clips of everything from the Lion King to Toy Story can be shown in almost cinematic quality.

Inside, the relatively modestly sized ground floor is a showcase for plush toys and New York-themed Disney products - which form about 10% of the offer in this store. Head upstairs and if you’ve been to one of the larger Disney stores around Europe of late, there will be much that seems familiar: just bigger. This floor has high walls and where it would have been easy to leave the area above the perimeter shelving blank, a frieze with silhouettes of Disney characters cheek-by-jowl with familiar New York skyline icons ensures that the shopper’s eye will not be allowed to rest easy for a moment.

At the back of the floor is a 20 ft-high castle. This is only about 6 ft high in Madrid and contains magic mirrors that allow shoppers to wave a ‘magic’ (RFID) wand in front of them and conjure up short clips from Disney cartoons. The effect is immersive and even if you don’t care for Disney, you will want to have a look around.

Forever 21


The largest apparel store in Manhattan goes a long way towards disguising the fact that the products on its four floors (a large ground floor, a basement, a sub basement and a sub sub basement) are inexpensive. This store is about making cheap look upscale. It does this by creating interior vistas that remind you of other stores, although it may be hard to place them. There is, for instance, an area on one of the lower floors where brightly coloured merchandise is displayed on walls where the surface has been covered with wallpaper that takes the form of a thin black on white grid. A cynic might perhaps be inclined to remark that it looks more than a little like American Apparel. Or perhaps you might feel that the bookcase-style fixturing in another part of the store is reminiscent of Polo Ralph Lauren. And there are Topshop references almost everywhere.

Adeline Adeline


Finally, a store that aims to provide a non-threatening environment for female cyclists or women who might like to try it out. With a very simple shopfit and stock that is about top-end wicker basket cycling, there is a make-do-and-mend ambience about the enterprise.

It is also staffed by women instead of the dispatch rider manqué more normally found in an independent bike store. By virtue of its position, in the lower part of lower Manhattan, it is clearly also a destination as this is a store that you would not happen upon by accident. Like all the others visited, it opened in 2010.

See full article at Retail Week

Window Science

I read a very poignant article by John Ryan yesterday about the shift in focus of store windows. There was a time where windows simply stood for one purpose, displaying products the shop sold so that customers would come in. Now however they have become a whole creative science...

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The idea was that a shop window would act as a sampler for what was on offer within. Very simple, and for many retailers it is still the principle driver when considering how to deal with the matter of window displays.

There is however a separate stream of thought that says that putting items in windows, be it clothing, computers or even paintbrushes, is probably not the best way of shifting stock and that something more needs to be done. Perhaps this may be the underlying reason for what’s happening at Selfridges on Oxford Street at the moment. The four windows that front the store’s “Wonder Room” at the western end of the building have a series of curious ‘installations’ (a word used more generally by fashionable art galleries), each designed to make you stop and stare.

Now it is the name of a trio of artists, a “collective” don’t y’know, who “challenge” our accepted views of things. Whatever your view on this, what is on show in Oxford Street is certainly interesting, ranging from a mass of tennis rackets (“Game”), to a gingham-clad table with white plates and bowls on it, displayed under the title “Tea for Two”.

This probably means something to somebody, but it does seem curious as part of a Selfridges window scheme. In fairness however, the whole notion of “The Wonder Room” is the retail equivalent of shock and awe (quite possibly at the prices) and fronting the area with something as unconventional as the work of the John Hour might seem justified.



More to the point, it makes a refreshing change from the “SALE, SALE, SALE” variants that fill the windows of the majority of other retailers along the street. The function of windows is in fact very straightforward: get ‘em to stop, get ‘em to think, get ‘em through the doors. It’s a principle that still gets overlooked.

Google's Retail Plans

Most retailers are aware by now that clean customer and product data is what will take their business to the next level in the coming years. It’s what will help them understand their customers and predict future buying patterns. But retailers aren’t the only ones keen to get control of it. Google is on a drive to get businesses to sign up to their latest e-commerce drive, which focuses on the value of information on local stock levels.

It might sound slightly dry, but it’s a good idea – keeping things local is at the heart of Tesco’s strategy for international expansion. Their group strategy director Andrew Higginson said at the National Retail Federation conference in New York last week, “Retail is still a local business. Even within the same city, two stores can display completely different needs. It’s a balance between getting global knowledge, IT and marketing consistent, and being absolutely local in what we offer consumers.”
Google appears to be on the same page, with business product manager Paul Lee speaking on the topic at the same conference.

There are two trends driving this. Firstly, the number of transactions that people research online and make in-store is rising to a predicted 64% of total purchases by 2019. So the real winners, Google says, will be bricks and mortar retailers who have useful information online – both about the product, and about where you can find it.

Secondly, the increasing use of mobile internet means people are searching in-store for immediate information. If they can’t find what they want on the shelves, they’ll search for it on their phones and go to the nearest place with the product they want in stock.

Google is working with technology suppliers like Oracle on the logistics of collecting this data, and already has a sizeable list of retailers signed up. Ventures like this are likely to need lots of work, aggregating and cleaning up data, uploading product listings to websites, and making sure it can be updated in real time. But if the big names are to be believed, the effort will be worth it.

Rebecca Thomson for Retail Week

Samsung's flexible OLED screen could revolutionise retail theatre.

We know OLED technology will hit the mainstream sometime, and we know flexible screens are in the future too... then enter Samsung, which at CES showed off a pocket-sized media player with an "unbreakable" palm-sized flexible OLED screen.



In the retail world this could very well revolutionise our in store shopping experience. Imagine stores with flexi screens forming part of the asthetic creative fit out. Videos wrapped around poles or hi-res imagery playing from the ceiling. It certainly opens up a doors for more engaging retail theatre.

What's more, I have no doubt that a clever retailer will soon adopt this technology to form labels' swing tags. So for example when you go to pick up an item of clothing the tag might show you a short video about it's origin, or content of it being worn in the catwalk and pricing information can be displayed in a more engaging way.

If Samsung can produce the flexible OLED screen for an affordable price on a larger scale I'd say we will be seeing a lot more of them in the next 5 years.

Ebay's augmented reality app

A newly released update to eBay’s fashion app for the iPhone 4 allows customers in the UK to try on sunglasses before they buy.

Using augmented reality, the firm has introduced its “See it On” feature which gives shoppers an idea of how a pair of sunglasses will look on their face.

The app uses the iPhone 4’s front-facing camera to display an image of the shopper, before superimposing the selected sunglasses on top. If the customer likes what they see, they can choose to get the items shipped out using a next day courier or international delivery firm.

A number of styles of glasses have been added to the app, including Aviator, Wayfarers and rimless. Frames and lenses are also available in a variety of colours.

In a statement released today, the company said: “eBay’s fashion app makes it easier than ever to indulge in your passion for fashion anytime, anywhere, and become your own online stylist.”

Facebook Shoppers Have 7-10% Larger Shopping Carts

Shoppers on Facebook like to buy more, spend more, and shop more – at least according to the latest numbers from private shopping site Kembrel. Kembrel has seen increased sales on its Facebook-only shopping app compared to its dot.com website, indicating that the return on investment for an ecommerce organization to establish a social presence could be quite high.

The Kembrel store itself is a college-only shopping site that offers limited-time, deeply discounted deals on over 50 college lifestyle brands including American Apparel, C&C California, and Blackberry and Mac accessories.

Kembrel expanded from its web-based store to include a Facebook store earlier this year, allowing users to shop and make purchases directly from within Facebook – an industry first at the time.

Using ShopIgniter‘s Social Promotions Engine to drive traffic from its main webpage to its Facebook store, Kembrel has seen measurable success that other e-retailers should pay attention to: Kembrel has driven 20% of all transactions inside their Facebook store with a 7 to 10% larger shopping cart than their dot.com website. These larger carts were due, in part, to special promotions run on Cyber Monday.

Cherif Habib, CEO and Founder of Kembrel, has this to say about Kembrel’s Facebook store:

“Students spend more time on Facebook every day than on any other site. ShopIgniter enables us to engage our social network by running unique, viral social eCommerce promotions like limited time sales and refer a friend incentive programs.”

Retail companies looking to increase visibility using social media should take note: During Black Friday and Cyber Monday, ShopIgniter’s hundreds of retail and brand manufacturer customers saw measurable successes. On average, they experienced an increase of 80% in user acquisition and a 500% increase in unique visitors related to viral/shareable coupons. It looks like targeting customers on social networks during peak shopping windows like Black Friday – and offering them incentives like sharable coupons to further leverage the social web – is an effective way to increase your online presence as a social shopping entity.

Lauren Dugan for allfacebook

Adidas virtual wall

Footwear fanatics will no longer have to trek to some massive metropolitan shoe shrine to ogle the latest products if Intel's dazzling virtual footwear wall catches on with retailers.

Unveiled today at the 2011 National Retail Federation's convention in New York, the magical spinning interactive adiVerse Virtual Footwear Wall potentially puts as many as 8,000 shoes at shoppers' fingertips in a futuristic mash-up of e-commerce and the mall.

Intel partnered with Adidas to show off what the wall might look like, and the results are pretty sweet. Designed by U.K. shop Start Creative, the wall renders products in 3-D, and allows a shopper to spin and zoom in on the shoes, and call up specs from a touch-screen display. Particularly hot models, like the company's F50 soccer shoe, have accompanying video and relevant information (like the fact that F50-clad feet scored 44 goals in last year's World Cup).

Supplemented by a supply of actual shoes that can serve as fit models, the display wall allows retailers to deliver massive inventory in a relatively small space. "We've leveled the playing field for small retailers," says Chris Aubrey, VP, Global Retail Marketing for Germany-based Adidas. "They can now act like a big flagship store in a town like New York." Not to mention the fact that the installation turns flat walls into prime selling space.

Aubrey says a prototype store will likely roll out in about a year in the U.K. -- a country that's nearly as enthusiastic about e-commerce as the U.S., but close enough for executives from the company's European headquarters to keep a close eye on how the wall is working out. "Germany itself still lags a bit," in its appetite for online shopping, Aubrey says.

Footwear sales in general are bouncing back, he says, after taking a hit during the global melt-down of 2008. "We had a very good 2010," he says. "I think consumer confidence is back."

Linda Tischler, FastCompany

Online GST backlash

BIG retailers losing sales to the internet should focus on improving their services instead of crying poor, says consumer watchdog Choice - one in a chorus of voices condemning the retailers yesterday.

Retail giants including Myer, David Jones, Borders and Harvey Norman are pressing the government to apply GST to goods bought online.

But the federal government's peak tax advisory body, the Board of Taxation, says the cost of collecting the extra GST would be likely to outweigh any benefit.
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The push comes after retailers reported a slump in Christmas trading and as consumers exploit the strong Australian dollar by shopping overseas online.

No GST is charged on goods bought from international websites for less than $1000.

Choice campaign director Christopher Zinn said shoppers should not be penalised for big business failing to adapt to their changing needs.

"The big chains should recognise that it's their high prices, limited range and poor customer service that increasingly encourages people to use the internet," Mr Zinn said.

''Consumers are simply chasing the best deal and the best service - and often these days that is found online.''

The big retailers' coalition is spending $200,000 on an advertising blitz that warns of job cuts should the government fail to act. It wants the government to either scrap the GST exemption or extend it to all products sold for less than $1000.

The Board of Taxation recommended last February that the figure not be changed.

Harvey Norman boss Gerry Harvey said many retailers were in danger of folding in coming months unless the rules were changed, while overseas businesses were getting a ''free kick''.

Melbourne billionaire Solomon Lew, who dominated yesterday's ad with more than half of the brands displayed owned by companies he or his family controls, said there would be bedlam if the policy continued unchanged.

''They just can't allow offshore retailers who don't pay any taxes in Australia, who don't employ anyone in Australia, who don't leave a cent behind in Australia, to just take the money and run,'' he told 3AW radio. He said the Tax Office was missing out on revenue that could fund hospitals and welfare.

Talkback callers vehemently opposed the retailers' idea - and 800-plus people posted comments on theage.com.au.

Yesterday, independent senator Nick Xenophon said it was ludicrous for big business to complain of an uneven playing field when it had earlier benefited from the power imbalance.

''It's like watching Goliath pretend he's David,'' he said. ''The extraordinary market power of these very businesses has put enormous pressure on the small business sector.''

Australian Retailers Association executive director Russell Zimmerman said many large companies had been slow to embrace the internet. By contrast, small retailers were using sites such as Facebook and Twitter to promote their wares.

''Small retailers are getting very savvy,'' he said. ''Retailers are going to need to look at various forms of retailing to engage with their customers.''

The flight online was just one factor afflicting the Australian retailing sector, he said, and high labour costs and soaring rents also needed review.

Assistant treasurer Bill Shorten said big business had exaggerated the impact of the GST exemption. ''Online retail sales account for about 3 per cent of all retail sales in Australia and it is estimated that between 20 per cent to half of these sales relate to overseas purchases,'' he said - meaning overseas online sales could be as little as 0.6 per cent of total retail sales.

The strong Australian dollar, consumer thrift and the aftershock of the global financial crisis were having a far greater impact, he said.

For Amanda Bajada, who owns a fashion store in Essendon, the internet has been a boon. She uses Facebook to ''befriend'' customers, upload images of new stock and spread the word about promotions.

Customers at her store, White Horse, were looking for a personalised service that was becoming harder to find at chain stores, Ms Bajada said. ''We try to present our customers with a very intimate space,'' she said. ''There's a plethora of big chains our clients can go to, but they come back to us.''

Facebook helped sustain relationships with one-off customers who then continued to order online from homes in other states, she said.

Yuko Narushima for The Age

Mac launches App Store with massive discounts

The Mac App Store has launched, freshly stocked with more than 1,000 OS X applications. The store comes as part of an OS X update, version 10.6.6, and is a standalone application rather than being yet another add-on to the already-creaking-and-bloated iTunes.

The store works a lot like the iOS App Store we know already: You sign in with your Apple ID, and then you can shop. Buy a Mac app, and the payment is charged to your registered credit card account. The app downloads automatically and is placed in the applications folder, with a convenient shortcut placed in the dock. (The icon actually leaps from the store window and lands in the dock — neat.)

This is clearly aimed at novice users who may never have actually downloaded and installed third-party software before, and the interface will be instantly familiar to anyone who has used the App Store in iTunes or on an iPad.

That said, there is plenty for power users, too. Apple’s flagship photo-editing software, Aperture, is in the store for just $80. You can still buy it from the conventional Apple Store, but it’ll cost the usual $200. That’s quite a saving.

The iWork office suite is in there, too, although it remains at the ‘09 version, not the new ‘11 update many were hoping for. The three iWork apps — Pages, Numbers and Keynote — cost $20 apiece, which is less than the usual $80 bundle price. If you already have these installed on your Mac, the App Store detects this and shows them as “installed,” just like on the iPad.

There are also free apps — the slick new Twitter, for example, which is the long awaited v2.0 of Tweetie for Mac -– as well as some old favorites: Angry Birds is quite something on a 27-inch iMac screen.

There are no trials in the Mac App Store, and submissions are subject to strict rules, just like the iOS store. It appears that some of these can be waived, though. Twitter is clearly using custom, nonstandard user-interface elements, and it is featured on the front page.

Apple is playing by its own rules here, too. No trial versions are allowed in the store, so developers have to host them on their own sites. Apple’s own trial for the iWork suite is on the main Apple site.

I predict that the store is going to be huge. It has the same kid-in-a-candy-store addictive qualities of the iPhone and iPad stores, along with a few features missing from the mobile versions. On the Mac, for example, all your purchases are listed under a tab in the top toolbar.

Finally, here’s a tip: Up in the Apple menu, on the top left of your screen, you may see a new entry called “App Store.” This replaces the old “Mac OS X Software” which has quietly been retired.

Charlie Sorrel for Wired

Collective Consumer Deals

Groupon – which offers a daily deal – has become a global phenomenon, and reportedly turned down an offer of $6bn to sell to Google. Sites such as Groupon work by sourcing a single deal at a large discount which is only available if a sufficiently large number of people in any given location sign up for it.

The two-year-old company is profitable, popular and on to a winning formula that can be executed on a large scale. Groupon proved the latter in August through its first national deal, with Gap to sell $50 worth of apparel and accessories for $25. While previously, the site was known for local daily deals with small businesses, the Gap program was a huge success.

In one day, the company sold 441,000 Groupons, netting about $11 million. At the moment, Groupon is the biggest player in this emerging space by far, but the interest from Google will no doubt spur deep-pocketed competitors to file in.

And of course there are other serious players in the group consumption phenomenon.



Jumponit.com.au offers fitness, beauty, dining and adventure deals.



Cudo.com.au is fast taking market share in Australia with a strong marketing campaign. Offering deals from kayak lessons to beauty treatments.



Allthedeals.com.au is the Google of Group buying. It puts daily and weekly specials into one cenral location. Users can click through offers from all the main players, as well as the latest catalogues from Kmart, Target, Optus etc.



Scoopon.com is probably the most contentious of the collective consumer gang at the moment. Set up by two Australian brothers brothers Gabby and Hezi Leibovitch, who were also the makers of Catch of the Day. Scoopon has in fact been causing Giant Groupon's delay into the Australian market.

In a media posting Groupon CEO Andrew Mason said: “The worldwide proliferation of Groupon clones has been well documented. One particular clone in Australia called Scoopon, created by the brothers Gabby and Hezi Leibovitch, has been making life difficult for us. Scoopon went a little further than just starting their Groupon clone – they actually purchased the Groupon.com.au domain name, took the company name Groupon Pty Limited, and tried to register the Groupon trademark (filing for the trademark just seven days before us) in Australia.”

Mason added: “As Groupon became internationally known, opportunistic domain squatters around the world started to buy local Groupon domain names, thinking that we’d eventually be forced to buy them at an insane price. In fact, we tried to do just that, reluctantly offering Gabby and Hezi Leibovich about $286,000 for the Groupon.com.au domain and trademark—an offer they accepted. But now they’ve changed their minds, and we believe that they’ll only sell us the domain and trademark if we’re willing to buy the entire Scoopon business from them.”

Tokyo's Lucky Bag

Retailers in Japan have a New Year shopping tradition of selling "lucky bags," which contain an assortment of items whose value typically exceeds the price you pay for the bag. Major department stores kicked off business for 2011 on Sunday as crowds of shoppers sought ‘‘lucky bags’’ filled with discount goods and other New Year bargains.

Department stores are hoping the New Year sales will help lead to a recovery in consumption among thrifty consumers.

Mitsukoshi Ltd’s flagship store in Tokyo’s Nihombashi district opened at 9:45 a.m., 15 minutes earlier than scheduled, as many people were lined up in front of the store. As one of the features of its New Year sales, the store was offering lucky bags filled with clothing for 10,500 yen.

Takashimaya Co prepared luxury lucky bags containing tickets for a cruise tour to the Antarctica, priced at 1.8 million yen, to mark the 180th anniversary of its founding.

The Seibu flagship store in Tokyo’s Ikebukuro, meanwhile, offered a series of lucky bags named after recent booms in Japan. They included lucky bags containing outdoor items for ‘‘yama (mountain) girls,’’ the nickname for the growing number of women taking to the hills in fashionable garb, and those including lunchbox and other items for ‘‘bento danshi,’’ or men who fix their own home-made lunches.

To the delight of many Apple fans in Tokyo, "lucky bags" are also sold at the Apple store. But at 30,000 yen (about $370), they don't come cheap.

Even at that price, demand is sky-high, and only the most dedicated of Apple fans can get them. Shoppers typically start lining up the day before the lucky bags go on sale, because every year at least a couple of people hit the jackpot and get a MacBook in their bag. From those who braved the cold overnight, here's a summary of what most are saying they found in their respective bags. I haven't seen any reports of MacBooks yet:

• Sennheiser earphones, smart remote with mic (iPod, iPhone, iPad)
• Mophie Juice Pack reserve
• iWires 3.5mm to 3.5mm stereo plug retractable cable
• iPod nano OR iPod touch
• Griffin Slap case for iPod nano
• Nike+ sensor
• iHome speaker system for iPhone/iPod
• red limited edition Apple T-shirt (view at end of video)

Sale Mania

Historically Boxing Day sales were always set to the be the biggest calender date in the retail year. But is that still the case?

With many retailers offering so many deals through out the year and the ongoing impact of online, it might question how effective the traditional Boxing Day sale is.

Well the simple answer is that it hasn't. It is just that the sales are now even more inviting.

On December 26th Debenhams fired the starter gun on its biggest ever Sale with discounts of up to 70% online and in stores. In fact the online sale started 3 days earlier on December 23rd.

John Lewis, B&Q, Comet, Halfords are just some of the retailers to start their clearance sales on Christmas Eve for internet shoppers, giving web consumers a 36 hour head start over those that will hit the high street on December 26.

Debenhams strategy aimed to jump start trade on the high street after poor trading in the lead up to Christmas because of the snow. Among the bargains to be had were:

• Principles by Ben de Lisi Colour Block Coat, was £120, now £60, save £60
• J by Jasper Conran Tailored Dress, was £75, now £37.50, save £37.50
• Raymond Blanc by Anolon hard anodised 4 piece cookware set, was £200, now £100, save £100
• James Martin 5 piece knifeblock, was £90, now £45, save £45
• Men’s Levis 504 slim straight dark worn in jean, was £85, now £42.50, save £42.50
• Rocha John Rocha Leather Harrington jacket in brown, was £199, now £99.50, save £99.50
• Betty Jackson.Black Complete Collection in Lavender or Iris, was £20, now £10, save £10
• Eylure Girls Aloud Eyelash Set, was £25, now £12.50, save £12.50

And it wasn't only Debenhams seeing the benefits of the post snow, post Christmas slump. John Lewis also enjoyed a strong start to its post-Christmas clearance. Online, visitor numbers were up 25% and sales up 45% on Christmas Day itself. Sales peaked between 9pm and 10pm. The online clearance began at 5pm on Christmas Eve and online sales that day were up 42%.

In fact I heard a report on BBC news that stated online retail sales alone amounted to £320 Million alone on the first day of the sales.

Even here in Australia, The Australian Retailers Association predicted $6.3 billion in sales in the first two weeks of the year. The Association's executive director, Richard Evans, says it has been a tough lead-up to Christmas and some shops have already been discounting heavily.



"Retailers have had a difficult year and they've been trying to stimulate shoppers since early November, doing it through a number of means and one of them is the sales, and we've had up to 50 per cent sales pre-Christmas," he said.

And Mr Evans says the sales will get even bigger.

"From the post-Christmas sales I think shoppers can expect up to 70 per cent or even perhaps more off in some cases, specifically in fashion and I would also say that there'd be some really good deals in furniture and domestic appliances," he said.

So it seems that the traditional Boxing Day sale is most certainly still alive and thriving and there are some serious bargains to be had...if you get online and in store fast.

Matalan Christmas TVC 2010.

Value fashion and homewares retailer Matalan has launched its first TV advertising campaign for four years.

The four-week campaign aired at the weekend during The X Factor, and is designed to “showcase the breadth of the Matalan offer from homeware to kids”.

Matalan senior brand manager Carly Hughes said it has returned to TV to “appeal to new and existing customers” after focusing on improving the design and quality of product as well as the in-store shopping experience in the last three years. This year’s ad features a “magical gift box from which Matalan products are taken and handed to the community”. Matalan’s last ran a TV campaign in autumn 2006.

John Lewis Christmas 2010

Department store John Lewis focused on customers “who care about showing they care” in its Christmas campaign.

Created by advertising agency Adam & Eve, it is set to a cover of Elton John’s “Your Song” performed by BRIT Award winner Ellie Goulding. The 60 second ad shows the full spectrum of Christmas giving, including the difficulties of wrapping and the lengths people go make sure gifts remain a surprise.

Presents featured in the campaign, which will run from five weeks, include top toy performers Butterscotch Pony and Le Toy Van Honey Bake Kitchen Set, as well as a Celia Birtwell watering can, handbag and twin candlesticks.

Craig Inglis, director, marketing, John Lewis, said: “Last year we focused on the joy of receiving presents so this year we felt it was important to show the emotions we all experience at Christmas when choosing and giving gifts to others.”

The ad, which also has two 30-second executions, will be supported by catalogues; in-store and online marketing, including social media, and the song will be available to download on iTunes. John Lewis has used cover versions in its past two adverts, including Guillemot’s singer Fyfe Dangerfield’s cover of “Always a Women”, which became a top ten hit.

Hamley's Christmas Pop-Up stores

Temporary stores in shopping centres will extend the retailer’s reach in key toy-selling period.

Famous toy store Hamleys is making its first foray into pop-up shops with the opening of three around the country to capture Christmas spend.

Hamleys opened Hamleys Toy Box shops in Bluewater and Sheffield’s Meadowhall last week. It opened a third in Chapelfield shopping centre in Norwich on Decemebr 22nd. All stores are expected to remain open until the end of January.

Because of its year-round popularity with visitors to London, Christmas accounts for only 25% of the retailer’s sales, but the pop-ups provide an opportunity to increase takings in the most important toy-selling period in the year.

Hamleys chief executive Gudjon Reynisson said: “It’s an idea we have had for quite some time and we decided to go for it this Christmas. We are taking things one step at a time and haven’t made any decisions yet, but we could either make these stores permanent or have more locations for pop-up shops next Christmas.”

Hamleys branched out from its flagship on London’s Regent Street in 2008 when it opened a large-format store in Dundrum Town Centre in Dublin, followed by another in Glasgow’s St Enoch centre in 2009. The pop-up stores will more than double the toy retailer’s locations in the UK, excluding its travel stores.

Reynisson said Hamleys was “extremely happy” with trading at the 1,000 sq ft Bluewater shop and the 2,000 sq ft Meadowhall store.

“They are very different to our wonderful big stores,” said Reynisson. “It’s really important to give more people access to our own-brand range, and to give customers a taste of the magic of Hamleys.”

The stores will stock 900 SKUs, with own-brand accounting for 70%. The rest of the offer is made up of Christmas best-sellers.

Reynisson added: “We are looking forward to Christmas. We are very optimistic and happy with the year so far.”

Reynisson said that, while pop-up shops were new to Hamleys, operating small-formats was not. The retailer has a handful of airport stores as well as one at St Pancras International railwaystation in London.

A Christmas White Wash

Well it has certainly been a turbulent Christmas for retailers across the world. The weather having had a huge effect on many Christmas sales.

I was in London for Christmas and all over the news were reports of retailers suffering across the UK as a result of the snow. People just couldn't get to the shops and what should have been the busiest weekend of the year on December 18th (40% of high street shoppers and 25% of out-of-town shoppers shop in the two weeks before Christmas) turned out to be quite a white wash.

Reports suggested that whilst many had bought their Christmas presents early, the last minute impulse buys that retailers rely on in the last few weeks of the year just weren't happening. The problems came as heavy snow resulted in shoppers staying in at the weekend causing a disruption to trading. Brent Cross shopping centre had to be closed on Saturday 18th December and shoppers in Bluewater in Kent had problems entering and exiting the car park.



And it was the supermarkets who were hit the hardest. Grant Liddell, key account development director at logistics group Uniserve, said the costs of supply chain delays would have hit grocers the most because of the scale of their operations. He said the snow must have “cost millions for the retail sector”. He said that drivers having to take stock back to depots or ports if it could not be delivered would “add about £1,000 to each container”.

As the weather improved on December 21st it encouraged punters back onto the high street. In fact in that week John Lewis reported sales increase of 4.3%.

But what about those who bought online? Well if you got in early your deliveries were made in time, however the snow caused such transport disruption that many people missed out. In fact online supermarket Ocado said that about 20% of an estimated 3,500 deliveries could not be delivered.

Especially affected were those in Scotland where retailers including Amazon, Marks & Spencer and Tesco either suspended deliveries or warned of delays.

Scottish Retail Consortium director Fiona Moriarty said: “People will rely on the high street rather than online - the high street has been extremely busy since the thaw.”

M and M Direct boss Steve Robinson said while there had been more web visits, it had been difficult to distribute catalogues. But he said: “I think [the snow] has benefited multichannel retailers most.”

John Lewis selling operations director David Barford said: “We’re in a fantastic position. What doesn’t go to clicks goes to bricks".