Shoppable videos

Target’s collaboration with Missoni, debuting in stores next month, also marks the retailer’s first use of “shoppable videos.” A range of brands have been testing this technology, which enables consumers to click on items within a video; then they’re either redirected to an e-commerce page or able to add the item to a shopping cart without leaving the video. Some videos are visually arresting (Gucci and high-end men’s retailer Oki-Ni), some use music video-style storytelling (Canadian sportswear brand Roots) and others use basic stylist tips.

These videos engage shoppers in a way that static shots can’t and let viewers quickly transition into a transaction, perfect for today’s instant-gratification temperament. Expect more shoppable videos as seasonal shopping gets under way later this year.

Patty Orsini for JWT Intelligence

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

JCPenney Sets Up Shop on Facebook

JCPenney has set up shop on Facebook, allowing consumers to buy the company’s clothes and tell their friends about it.

The retailer worked with Usablenet on the site, which also lets users “like,” share and review products.

JCPenney currently has 1.3 million fans on Facebook. The company moved closer to Facebook integration in October when it began running Facebook “like” buttons in its banner ads.

JCPenney’s not the first retailer to sell its wares on the world’s largest social networking site. 1-800-Flowers started offering Facebook-based transactions last year and in August, Delta Airlines began letting users book tickets from its Page. Procter & Gamble also runs an e-commerce site on the network.

Check out the site:
http://www.facebook.com/jcpenney?v=app_174296685928910#!/jcpenney?v=app_174296685928910

Todd Wasserman for Mashable

Visa's Local Deals on the iPhone

Visa has announced that its official iPhone application is available for free in the iTunes App Store. It’s completely in step with other popular consumer apps, as it’s heavy on deals and location-based technology.

Each user automatically receives customized offers, which are stored in the app and can be redeemed online or in brick-and-mortar stores. The app gives its users a handy map and directions for locating retail outlets where they can redeem their offers, and it will also help Visa cardholders find nearby ATMs.

At launch, Visa is working with about 50 hand-picked retailers to bring special deals to Visa account holders via the Visa iPhone app. Participating merchants currently include 24 Hour Fitness, Meineke, New York & Company, Holiday Inn, Hard Rock Café and Zales.

As far as customization goes, users will be able to select from a handful of categories to tailor the offers they get; verticals include purchases such as clothing, jewelry, travel, dining, entertainment and other retail goods.

And account holders with Visa Signature cards will get extra special offers in addition to the offers available to all Visa account holders.

While we were expecting something a bit less trendy and a bit more techie from the credit card company — something like what Visa did for New York City subway riders, perhaps — Visa’s first official iPhone app is a decent starting point.

Jolie O'Dell for Mashable

Black Friday Sales Figures Soar for Online Retailers

Initial numbers for Black Friday sales are in, and things are looking pretty rosy for Internet retailers.

Americans typically think of Black Friday as the biggest day of the year for brick-and-mortar stores, but another segment of the retail industry is seeing phenomenal year-over-year growth, even as the recession lingers on.

Online retailers saw an overall 15.9% sales growth between Black Friday 2009 and Black Friday 2010. The price of the average order also rose 12.1% from around $170 per order to $190.80.

This data, which comes from Coremetrics, also shows that consumers, though they’re spending more online, are spending smarter. When we make a purchase, we’re viewing fewer items per site, looking at fewer pages and doing fewer on-site searches, suggesting that we’ve done our research ahead of time and know what we want when we decide to make a purchase.

With that in mind, it’s likely that a greater online spend might translate to a lower overall spend this holiday season, as bargain hunters glean the best deals from the web and forgo traditional, in-store shopping.

Retailers are also seeing more mobile shoppers logging in from their phones. Around 5.6% of Black Friday 2010 traffic came from mobile devices — a 26.7 year-over-year increase.

These results don’t surprise us much. Online shopping has long been on the rise; in fact, in a poll we’re running right now, the majority of respondents are already saying they’ll do all or most of their holiday shopping online.

Jolie O'Dell for Mashable

D’Espresso - New York

The new D’Espresso on Madison Avenue (at 42nd) in New York has received more media attention than is generally awarded to a tiny coffee shop in this world of millions of new coffee shops.

The reason for the attention is the fun design by the Manhattan-based nemaworkshop, a team of designers and architects that has created numerous cool retail and hospitality concepts. Founder Anurag Nema took the idea of a coffee shop that looks like a library – giving a nod to the nearby New York Public Library’s Bryant park branch – and turned it on its side. The walls are not lined with books but the floors and ceiling are. Except that it is all an illusion, a life-size image of books printed on custom tiles. Pendant lighting does not hang from the ceiling; it sticks out from the walls.

The tiny coffee bar of 420 square feet (39 square meters) is the second for owner Eugene Kagansky (the first one is on the Lower East Side) who plans to create an entire empire of coffee shops. Apparently, the next one will be completely upside down. - Tuija Seipell

Finger in the nose

What a great name for a kids’ brand. Well, this French brand is the epitome of style (regardless of the size of their audience!) From its ‘Sartorialist-snap-worthy’ mini models with just the right amount of attitude to its authentic rock n roll aesthetic, this brand offers quality kids’ wear for the emerging fashionista.

This label is not just about cutting a stylish figure on the streets; integral to its DNA is the long-term quality of the pieces, offering superior comfort and wearability. They use 9-11 ounce real European denim with raw, stone, bleach, snow and leather-look washes, and real feather down for their jackets and Geelong merino angora for their knitwear. Their 100% cotton tees feature wild animals and mythology-style graphic prints. The only negative? Your kids could quite likely steal the spotlight from your own sartorial efforts. Consider yourself warned! – Kate Vandermeer

Shopping Hauls

Yep, online spruking is the future.

I guess it just taps into that innate female inquisitiveness of what other chicks have bought and what they paid for them. After all, a recommendation from a like minded person is far more compelling that the retailers stamping out what they think I should buy. In that sense it's the fashion world's version of Tripadvisor.

Currently millions of viewers are voyeuristically soaking up every minute of the 150,000 haul videos on YouTube about mundane purchases, from a bargain bag of apples to a mascara wand.

Have a look at these shoppers' hauls: xoFemmeBeauty | eyedollbeautytv | snorkleyy

"It really is exactly like show and tell," hauler Holly Go-Lightly said. "This is essentially what haul videos are, showcasing all the pretty things you found on your shopping trip, but to a larger audience in the comfort of your own home."

It's video blogging or 'vlogging' and it's got tweens, teens and adults around the world taking note. And like blogging it's already being tapped into by PR and Marketing departments alike to flog, sorry vlog their goods.

Smiggle

Australian stationers 'Smiggle' has today run away with the prize of Australian Retailer of the year 2010 at the ARA Australian Retail Awards.

Smiggle was born in 2003 when its founder noticed a gap in the market for colourful, fun, fashion-forward stationery. The first store opened in South Yarra, Melbourne and it fast becoming the hottest retailer for bright pens, notebooks and gadgets.

Smiggle then joined Just Group's strong portfolio of brands in August 2007 and has not looked back since! In December 2008 Smiggle jumped the seas and opened its first international store in New Zealand. It's all part of the plan to be the world's most famous stationery brand.

Ben Sherman's 'Shop load of shirts'

To coincide with New York Fashion week, British retailer Ben Sherman converted their SOHO window into a huge PR stunt. Using the idea of 'a shop load of shirts' they decked out their windows both inside and out with the product that made them famous.

They then filmed people's reactions...

Try before you buy

'Tryvertising' - a new trend that lets consumers experience a product virtually before they buy it - has prompted an online watch retailer to develop an app that lets would-be customers see how a watch looks on their wrist before they commit to it.

Canadian Nuevo Watches offers a form of virtual tryvertising with its new app, reports global trend monitoring website Springwise.com.

Click here to find out more!
Compatible with the iPhone and the 4th generation iPod touch, the Nuevo app from Monokromik lets users try on and select watches in the Neuvo watch collection without physically touching them.

The free app is available for download from the iTunes store (search 'Monokromik'); it requires iOS 3.1.3 or later. Once it's downloaded, users can virtually try on any of Montreal-based Nuevo's four CAD 45 watches, which come in black, bronze, gold or silver. The watches are only sold online, which makes the app especially useful.

Website: www.neuvomonde.com

Thanks to insideretailling.com.au

Ice Cream Vending Machine!

Innovative marketers have begun reinventing how consumers engage with their products by transforming yesterday's transactional vending machines into today's powerful brand experience machines.

Enter Moobella.com

This innovative Ice Cream company has made choosing your ice cream an interactive, unique and engaging experience.

Moobella's revolutionary Ice Creamery Machine has made making ice cream simple. Using an interactive touch screen allows you to "make your own" delicious hard scoop ice cream – fresh, on-the-spot, in 3 easy steps and in only 40 seconds!

You can actually make up to 96 different combinations, choosing from 12 flavors and delicious mix-ins, in both Premium and Light ice cream. The MooBella® patented fresh churn technology blends, aerates and freezes your selection to create a perfect mouth-watering scoop of ice cream.

Have a go at making your own online: www.moobella.com

Zara now shopping online

Finally, Zara have opened online shopping. Complete with Zara's famous 'look book', catalogue, newsletter subscription and magazine. You can browse through 1000's of current styles for men, women and kids.

The catch? Delivery is only available in Germany, Spain, The canary Islands, France, Italy, Portugal and the UK. So get on the phone to your European mates and start shopping through them!

What I'm obsessed with this week..

When the fashion store Topshop opened in New York just over a year ago, a torrent of hype ensured there were queues of shoppers at the door on the first day. There was a blizzard of red, white and blue ticker tape to mark the moment, and at the opening party A-list celebrities including Jennifer Lopez and the editor of US Vogue, Anna Wintour, rubbed shoulders with Topshop's chunky billionaire owner, Sir Philip Green.

Six weeks ago, just a few hundred yards further along Broadway, another big name in British fashion retailing – AllSaints – arrived in the Big Apple with an altogether lower-key launch.

But the word in the rag trade is that it is going down a storm with New York's fashion-conscious consumers, and has taken more than $1m in its first two weeks – beating the takings at Topshop, whose shop is almost twice the size.

The 70-strong AllSaints chain is a little bit Goth. Its edgy clothing rails are a sea of black, beige, and grey. Its trademark motif is a skull and its speciality is the distressed look; clothes made to look well worn-in and scuffed Victorian-style boots without laces.

It's not cheap: leather jackets are north of £300; there are 45 graphic and skull-print T-shirts at up to £80 a piece; and more than 100 dresses averaging around £50 to £250. However, that doesn't seem to deter the masses who are paying not just for the trend that is All Saints but the sensational brand experience they get when they walk into one of their stores.



And what's interesting is that it doesn't advertise, preferring to drum up sales from free mentions in the fashion press and customer referrals. Equally, no staff are allowed to speak on behalf of the business.

What they do however is to promote the All Saints brand to their target by association. In NYC this Summer they have teamed up with the Williamsburg concert series, Jelly Pool Parties. At the event they set up an AllSaints pub where guests drank complimentary cocktails by Sailor Jerry rum and Dos Equis beer. The pub venue was decked out in their traditional heritage East End style with an antique bar, authentic piano and distressed AllSaints furniture.

All Saints have also teamed up with Agyness Deyn and fashion journalist Fiona Byrne who video blogged the event for their newly launched website NAAG.com and interviewed Alexa Chung, fashion designer Christian Siriano and model, Becka Diamond.

Their 'Flipbook' station was also housed in an AllSaints on-site container, which was painted by a local NYC artist. Every participant has a short clip filmed which is then turned into an original, hard copy flipbook and a digital version for them to share on Facebook and Twitter.

This is a retail brand that customers want to engage with both on the high street and off and one to watch for the future.


Thanks to The Guardian UK

Video in supermarket aisles

FOR many marketers, advertising in stores is an increasingly important way to influence shoppers at the so-called moment of truth, as they finally make up their minds about which brands of soup, soap or cereal to buy — or not buy. Now, a company is hoping to bring commercials to the retail point of purchase on screens that will be attached to shelves and above aisles.
Enlarge This Image

Automated Media Services plans to test its system, 3GTV, in stores this summer. This screen displays an ad for Kraft macaroni and cheese.

The company, Automated Media Services, known as A.M.S., has been working for years on a system that would deliver television in retail environments in a way that would allow media agencies to plan and buy commercial time in stores just as they do on the networks, channels and stations watched at home. The system, which the company calls 3GTV, also includes provisions to verify that commercials have actually run.

The initial test of 3GTV is scheduled during the summer in Maryland and Virginia, at nine stores that belong to the Bloom supermarket chain, part of the Food Lion unit of the Delhaize Group.

The executives at Automated Media Services, who have backgrounds in television, advertising and marketing, have raised an estimated $10 million to develop 3GTV. Investors and advisers include some names well known on Madison Avenue, among them Burt Manning, former chairman and chief executive at the JWT division of WPP, and Stephen Grubbs, who held senior posts at media agencies owned by the Omnicom Group like OMD and PHD.

Source: NY Times

Puma's pop-out shop

Puma has developed a “pop-out shop” that will tour the country as the sports fashion brand aims to allow customers to rediscover the brand’s retro lines from the 1970s and 1980s.

As part of its Rewind Forward project, which launches next month, Puma will drive a customised vehicle that “mutates into a shop” representing those two decades to London, Manchester and Liverpool as well as various festival locations throughout the summer.

The brand said that it may pitch up in car parks, railway stations or even people’s gardens. “The stranger the location the better,” it said.

The shop will be made up of various elements that pop out, which include seating, storage, TV screens and a projector.

The Rewind Forward project, which encompasses other yet-to-be-revealed events, will “enable the consumer to re-discover and see the Puma Archive range in a new light”, it said.

The inside of the pop-out shop will be “decked out with the best archive moments in Puma’s history alongside Puma Archive product”, added the brand.

Source: Retail Week

Mobile charging wellies!

Thanks to a new prototype, powering up a cell phone can simply mean using heat from the feet. The catch is it takes a lot of walking.

European telecommunications company Orange is displaying a new phone-charging prototype in a pair of rubber boots. The company is unveiling a set of Wellington Boots that have a "power generating sole" that converts heat from the feet into electrical power to charge battery-powered handheld appliances.

The boots were created in collaboration with renewable energy experts GotWind. They came about through Orange's efforts to find alternative, sustainable and eco-friendly mobile phone charging technologies. The boots are debuting at the Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts, where patrons can check them out.

GotWind explains that the power is collected through a process called the "Seebeck" effect. Thermoelectric modules created from pairs of "p-type and n-type semiconductor materials" are located inside the power-generating sole. They form thermocouples that are connected to other thermocouples and placed between two thin ceramic wafers.

Heat from the feet are applied to the top side of the water and cold is applied to the bottom side from the cold of the ground, causing electricity to be generated.

The company states that 12 hours of stomping should produce enough power to charge a phone for an hour. Hotter feet mean more energy

Orange stated in a press release that the Orange Power Wellie follows other innovations created for use at the festival.

Previous projects included the Recharge Pod that used wind and solar energy, the Dance Charter that was powered up by kinetic energy created by dancing and the Orange Power Pump that used energy from a traditional foot pump and turned it into electricity.

Prince Charles opens his own organics store

Highgrove Stores

You know Britain is in a recession when Prince Charles opens a chain of retail stores! Highgrove is The Prince of Wales' organic produce brand and has seen him open it's third branch on Wednesday, despite suffering from a lingering chest infection.

Charles has cancelled a number of visits so he can fight the illness, but is honouring key long-standing commitments this week, Clarence House said.

Among those engagements is the opening of the latest incarnation of the Highgrove store, this time in Bath, Somerset.

Highgrove sells organic foods and lifestyle products, which take their inspiration from his Gloucestershire home of the same name.

The majority of goods in the collection have been created by British artisan manufacturers and craftsmen.

Profits from the sale of products are donated to the Prince's Charities Foundation.

A second branch of Highgrove opened in Tetbury in March 2008, near to the Prince's home, where the first store is open to visitors touring his gardens.

Have a browse and purchase online at http://www.highgroveshop.com

Whole Foods Map of Local Growers

Map of Local Growers

Whole Foods has recently developed this cool map of local growers and vendors. It is still a work in progress but well worth a look. Local partnerships are added all the time and some of Whole Foods' regions and stores aren’t represented yet. Users can search for locally grown producers near them or near a specific store. Check out their interactive local growers map.

John Lewis captures the hearts of Britain

Created by UK agency Adam & Eve for department store John Lewis, the retailer says that the ad – which features a reworking of Billy Joel’s Always A Woman To Me soundtracking a woman’s life story – has resulted in an astonishing 39.7% leap in sales.



It’s certainly capturing the public’s imagination in the UK. Several mainstream British papers have written about it, and I think it’s the first time my parents have ever emailed me about an ad. As The Observer puts it:

“All over Britain, women are kneeling in front of their tellies, heads low, shoulders shaking, tears and mucus dripping from their reddened faces like rain from a suburban gutter.”

I can’t think of another ad, which has such a positive response from the mainstream press so quickly:

* John Lewis ‘Spend it before you die’ ad puts sales up 40% – Observer
* Genius of John Lewis’s everywoman ad wins female vote – Guardian
* She’s ad us all in tears – The Sun
* John Lewis advert prompts iTunes release of Billy Joel cover – Telegraph
* John Lewis’ £6m advert becomes a YouTube hit - Metro
* The £6m ad that’s got Britain talking – and sobbing – Daily Mail

Mind you, at a reported $10m, it had better shift some units.

And as John Lewis isn’t in Australia, if I was Myer or David Jones, I’d be looking at the possibilities of licencing it for this market before my rival does.

Thanks to Tim Burrowes Mumbrella