The cross-over between physical and online retail is not just for innovators and techies. It is the way people shop. In a 30 day period spanning Christmas, 52% of Americans who have mobile phones (and who cares about the rest? 
) used mobile phones to help them make buying decisions, according to research from Pew Internet.
Social Business Metrics: Measuring Engagement Not Mentions | SmartData Collective
Transforming your business into a social business means more than simply monitoring mentions and buzz. It means being able to further categorize the large volumes of conversation for consumer expressions around intentions and preferences. It means better audience segmentation and surfacing demographic details.
Here at CI, we are actively working with clients to not only analyze social media conversation but to make it relevant to their business. To that end, we are creating indexes that focus more on how engaged a customer is rather than simply volume of activity.
For example, our Retail Conversation Index is a weighted, indexed sum of three metrics:
How NFC Shopping Will Save You Money While You Wave Your Phone Like A Loon | Fast Company
A French startup is launching a shelf-edge NFC system that demonstrates why NFC could revolutionize shopping, add value, and save you some money in the process. Get ready to wave your phone in the air like you just don’t care…
Think&Go’s new NFC commerce platform is all kinds of exciting, if you’re into near-field wireless tech or interested in the future of shopping. That’s because the system, which is being tried out in France’s E. Leclerc supermarkets, has some of the next-gen, genuinely value-added features of smartphone-enabled NFC shopping in the form of interactive store shelf-labeling and real-time dynamic advertising.
The system is bright enough to realize that if you use your phone to register an interest in buying spaghetti, it would be smart to offer you an advert for a ready-made bolognese sauce. The shopping “preference engine” in the accompanying smartphone app allows consumers to set limits on products they’re interested in, so a wave of their phone over the store’s shelf-side NFC label instantly tells them if this is a product that meets their needs. While handy, this system is also useful for detecting dietary information or alerting users that such-and-such a product contains peanut oil, for instance. For those who don’t want to collapse in an allergen-induced attack, desperately waving at passing shoppers to help administer their Epi-pen, the smartphone is your new best friend.
Credit card giant Visa announced Thursday that it’s working with prominent retailer Gap to roll out a new mobile discount experience to shoppers.
Based on the specifics announced of the partnership, Visa will push real-time discounts and promotions to consumers via SMS text messages.
Gap customers who opt-in to participate in the service are notified of money-saving discounts or promotions in real-time while shopping.
Visa’s global processing network, the company says, connects millions of merchants and thousands of financial institutions around the world. Consequently, Visa now has the ability to enable the technology behind this new mobile service.
AUSTRALIANS will be able to make Visa card payments with their smartphones at shops within a year, following a trial completed last week.
Visa Australia innovation director Ben Pfisterer said a four-week trial conducted with ANZ Bank, in which staff used enhanced Apple iPhones for retail payments, had been “completely successful”.
Full Story: The Australian
via emergentfutures:
How to Turn Bargain Hunters into Loyal Customers
A new service called LevelUp aims to combine several online business trends—game dynamics, social media, and location-based services—not just to win new customers for local businesses but to turn them into regulars.
via emergentfutures:
Full Story: Technology Review
Augmented Reality in Macy’s Dressing Rooms
I love the idea of using AR as a virtual dressing room.
“Using a unique blend of augmented reality, app technology, and social media, Macy’s and LBi have re-invented the dressing room experience for New Yorkers visiting Macy’s Herald Square store.
Customers enter a dressing booth outfitted with with a 72-inch multi-touch mirror and an iPad. The customer then selects clothing from the iPad application and transfers the items on their body’s image on the mirror with a flick of the wrist. Naturally, photos of customers in various outfits can be shared on their social network using emails or SMS.”
(with the purpose of getting live feedback from their friends).
(via trendd: PSFK » Macy’s Rethinks The Fitting Room Experience)
Mobile phone e-wallets get closer to reality | Mobile World Congress
Source: CNET
Later this year you’ll be able to pay for clothes, taxi fare, and dinner with your mobile phone and leave your credit cards and cash at home.
Visa is planning a commercial rollout in the U.S. in the second half of this year of a service for allowing allow people to turn their existing smartphones into electronic wallets. It uses Near Field Communication (NFC) short-range wireless technology and includes real-time anti-fraud alerts and other features designed to protect consumers from fraud, Bill Gajda, global head of Visa Mobile, told CNET in an interview at Mobile World Congress 2011 here this week. Visa was demonstrating its PayWave mobile payment system at the show.
Despite the promise of convenience and ease of use, the e-wallet industry has gotten off to a sluggish start as mobile handset makers have dragged their feet on adopting NFC technology and retailers saw no need to install mobile payment readers if the phones weren’t yet equipped. In 2008, the GSMA, a trade association representing the Global System for Mobile Communications industry, called on manufacturers to embed NFC chips in phones by late 2009 and three years later they are trickling out.
