Despite declining sales over the past few years, the Irish retail sector is slowly beginning to turn itself around, according to a new report from Retail Excellence Ireland.

Sales in January were down 5 percent year-over-year and overall sales per square foot in the first quarter also declined significantly compared with the same time in 2011. However, encouraging signs were observed in March, when sales climbed by 0.7 percent, suggesting Ireland's retail sector may be bouncing back from the recession.

''March 2012 returned to like for like growth helped by a spell of good weather. The big ticket discretionary sectors remain in greatest distress,'' Retail Excellence Ireland's chief executive David Fitzsimons told RTE News.

Hot beverages and pharmacies proved to be the best-performing retail categories, while furniture and flooring were among the bottom of the list, both down by 10 percent.

If merchants are having difficulty meeting sales numbers, they may want to consider revising store operations and diversifying their product lineup. This could help them reach new shoppers and further buoy sales.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Wednesday, April 25th, 2012 at 10:39 am .

Consumers are increasingly using their mobile devices to make mobile purchases, according to a new study from Interactive Media in Retail Group, an ecommerce trade association based in the United Kingdom.

Compared to March 2011, the number of mobile sales last month skyrocketed by 254 percent, the report notes. Similarly, mobile conversion rates were up as well – from 0.7 percent in 2011 to 1.4 percent this year. While mobile conversions still live in the shadow of PC rates (4.13 percent), the report clearly highlights the growth of smartphones as shopping tools.

"[PC conversions could be higher] because many U.K. shoppers visiting e-retailers from their smartphones today are shopping on traditional ecommerce sites," InternetRetailer notes. "Navigating an ecommerce site on a mobile device can be frustrating because a consumer is forced to pinch, zoom and swipe extensively to see products, and the content-heavy pages can take more than a minute to load."

This also notes the importance of developing smartphone-specific retail sites. By optimizing an ecommerce platform for the smaller screens of cellphones, retail merchants may be able to get more mileage out of mobile shoppers.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Tuesday, April 24th, 2012 at 12:42 pm .

Despite rising fuel costs and grocery prices, American consumers are still optimistic about the economy. A recently released Bloomberg report shows that household confidence improved last week to match the highest level in the past four years, which can only mean good things for retail merchants.

The Bloomberg confidence index was observed at minus 31.4 points during the week ending April 15, a 1.4 point improvement compared to the previous seven days. The 31.4 reading is the highest since March 2008, insinuating that the retail sector is on its way to emerging out of the recession-era doldrums, Retailing Today notes.

However, economists were quick to note that many Americans are still unemployed, which may put a damper on expectations.

"The uneven nature of the recovery will likely continue to restrain the type of improvement in consumer sentiment that one would traditionally observe at this point in the expansionary cycle," said Joseph Brusuelas, a senior economist at Bloomberg LP in New York.

Retailers looking to drive in-store traffic, despite the cost-conscious consumer mindset, may want to consider offering discounts. This will make it easier to justify shopping, despite higher commodity prices.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Tuesday, April 24th, 2012 at 12:41 pm .

As many retailers look to incorporate the mobile web into their marketing and ecommerce efforts, many have let their standalone websites fall by the wayside. It's pivotal that merchants devote their full attention to all areas of their online presence to ensure the best customer experience.

According to a new report from Compuware Gomez, Overstock.com took high honors in regards to the consistency of its website. On Internet Explorer, the page loaded with the average variation of 0.78 seconds, meaning the retail brand was largely providing users with the same experience. Macys.com was top dog when it came to Firefox, with a consistency score of 0.53 seconds.

"The average Internet Explorer consistency score among the 22 retailers measured in March was 1.25 seconds," Compuware Gomez says, Internet Retailer reports. "The same group of retailers produced an average Firefox score of 1.81 seconds."

Load speed is critical when trying to make the best impression on internet shoppers. Separate studies from Google have found that slow loading speeds can turn customers away even before they see the website, which is why the search engine uses load speed as a signal for determining search rankings.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Sunday, April 22nd, 2012 at 7:17 am .

According to a new report from KPMG, the strength of the retail sector in India is waning due to the closure of several big-name brands. In 2008 and 2009 – the era hailed as the peak of the retail industry in the country – there were more than 4,500 retail stores. As of now, however, that number has shrunk to 2,900, a decline of approximately 38 percent.

Most of the decrease took place in 2009 and 2010, when retail powerhouses such as Subhikhsa went under. While things have stabilized in 2011 and 2012, the sector has shown relatively flat growth, suggesting conditions could still improve.

"It's not an easy business to be in and every retailer in the country is revisiting [their] strategy. In this phase of consolidation, retailers are looking at improving supply chain efficiencies, experimenting with formats that work best," Sandeep Gupta, managing director at Protiviti, told the Hindustan Times.

Retailers looking to bolster efficiency should consider leveraging retail software solutions. This can help them identify potential weak points while further streamlining store operations.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Friday, April 20th, 2012 at 7:15 am .

Contactless payment methods are slated to become the norm by 2020, according to a recent report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project that polled a panel of technology experts.

Approximately two-thirds of respondents (65 percent) believe most people will have fully adopted the mobile wallet as their primary point-of-sale payment solution in eight years, usurping cash and credit cards as the gold standard. The change will come as more consumers rely on personal hardware and software for transactions, making smartphones the ideal conduit in that sense.

However, there will still be a place for cash and credit cards in the future. As many as 33 percent of the polled experts believe consumers will not trust the safety and privacy of near field communications (NFC) technology for financial transactions. Consumers, they say, will be hesitant to use their phones for big transactions and thus don't think mobile payments will gain a lot of traction by then.

Factors barring the adoption of mobile payments

Indeed, these privacy fears are a big reason why adoption of mobile technology has been slow thus far. Additionally, the tech experts noted the desire for anonymous payments, a lack of infrastructure to support widespread mobile payment adoption and resistance from companies already entrenched in the existing payment systems.

"As much as I'd like to see a money-free world, I'm afraid the opportunities for the hackers and pirates are too great," one respondent told Mashable. "I'm happy to buy my $2 Starbucks using my Android but I don't know that we will ever feel secure enough to make much larger purchases that way."

Supporters of mobile payments, however, were quick to point out how many countries throughout the world are already using similar systems.

"The 2020 date might be a bit optimistic, but I'm sure that this will happen," study participant Hal Varian, chief economist at Google, explained to the news source. "What is in your wallet now? Identification, payment and personal items. All this will easily fit in your mobile device and will inevitably do so."

As the number of smartphone owners continues to grow, so too does the reality of a mobile payment future. According to the latest data from comScore, upward of 100 million Americans own smartphones such as the iPhone or HTC Evo. To put that in perspective, that's approximately half of the United States' total mobile subscriber base.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Friday, April 20th, 2012 at 7:14 am .

In the first quarter of 2012, the number of British consumers performing retail searches from tablet devices grew 11 percent compared to the same time a year earlier, highlighting the importance of considering these devices as retail merchants plan their engagement tactics.

Meanwhile, total search volumes from overseas shoppers were up by 57 percent during the first quarter, peaking in January. In particular, the health & beauty and food & drink categories saw the biggest growth, up 21 percent year-over-year.

Many consumers are using these devices to check out what prices are at various retailers, ensuring they get the best price. Retailers should take note and employ practices to prevent them from losing sales to less expensive competitors.

"Squeezed household budgets mean customers are turning more and more to the internet to research what they're buying and look for best value," Stephen Robertson, director general and British Retail Consortium, said.

Many American retailers are already using price-matching policies to give mobile-savvy customers a reason to buy with them instead of the competition. Merchants around the world may want to consider similar tactics.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Thursday, April 19th, 2012 at 8:46 am .

Retail Pro® 9.2 Revision 5 has been released and is now available. This release focuses on addition of new functionality in the area of Customer Loyalty and UPC Reuse, as well as some reworking and enhancement of some existing functionality in serial numbers.

“As the old business adage goes, it's a much easier task to keep existing customers satisfied than it is to win over new ones, and this is especially true in the retail sector. Improving customer retention and loyalty is absolutely pivotal to buoying the bottom line of most merchants, and this latest release helps merchants do just that," said Bill Colley, Senior Vice President of Development and Client Services at Retail Pro International.

Retail Pro® 9's customer loyalty module enables users to set up loyalty programs and reward their best customers with incentives that marry to the way they do business, whether through fixed discounts and point-based programs or promotional programs that reward loyal customers with goods. Loyalty is redeemed by leveraging the Retail Pro Centrals Server technology, which processes transactions and keeps the database updated in real time – a feature paramount to providing customers with up-to-the-minute information on their balances.

Another key area of focus is that of serial number tracking. Retail Pro® 9.2 R5 includes several significant improvements to the way the retail software manages serial number use, as well as, how those serial numbers are handled and tracked at point of sale and across locations.

Key changes include serial numbers now being tracked and controlled at the store level as opposed to the company level, enhanced tracking and display of serial number statuses within frontline areas of the system, direct links for viewing the serial number's document history and the ability to filter lists of serial numbers by store, company and single serial numbers.

The area of UPC management has been improved to now allow the reuse of existing UPCs within the Retail Pro Inventory. Retailers and manufacturers purchase UPCs in blocks, which are then assigned as needed to inventory items. After stock associated with these UPCs has been depleted, the UPCs can now be reused and applied to new inventory descriptions and items.

This is a divergence from previous handling, which dictated a UPC could not be reused once assigned within the Retail Pro® retail management system. In this release, a new UPC field has been established which is completely independent of the item’s unique system ID and can be reused if merchants so desire. When their systems are configured to use this new UPC field, Retail Pro® 9 will utilize the new field as its basis for lookups on item information, rather than the UPC field associated with unique system ID.

“These are just a few of the changes made in the latest release. Retail Pro International remains committed to helping retailers stay ahead of the curve by continually implementing key features that support their business needs," added Colley.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Wednesday, April 18th, 2012 at 10:13 am .

Unusually warm weather encouraged more British shoppers to leave the house and spend money, according to a new report from the British Retail Consortium's monthly health check.

Overall sales activity was up 3.6 percent in March compared to the same time last year, with U.K. men driving the majority of the spending influx. Stores selling footwear, clothes and outdoor leisurewear noted the biggest year-over-year increase, The Guardian adds.

"The unusually warm weather in March brought some welcome sunshine into the lives of non-food retailers," Stephen Robertson, the BRC's director general, explained. "The early signs of summer got people buying clothes and shoes for the new season. Gardening items and outdoor leisure also saw a lift."

However, the report also pointed out that the increase in floor space over the past year suggests retail sales should be even higher. It's paramount that retailers not look too far into the results of a single month and continue to plan accordingly.

Similar weather conditions in the United States sparked retail sales as well. Likewise, men also appear to be shopping for clothes more frequently.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Wednesday, April 18th, 2012 at 10:02 am .

One of the biggest advantages to shopping online, from the perspective of consumers, is being able to conduct research quickly and efficiently. They can learn about products they've never heard of in a matter of seconds by entering the name into a search bar or asking friends on social media.

Perhaps an even better means of accomplishing this – and one that retailers can further facilitate – is online reviews. Businesses can quickly and easily integrate online reviews into their websites to give consumers a way of offering their advice to other prospective buyers. Moreover, consumers are growing increasingly trusting of these reviews when it comes to making a purchase decision.

According to a new report from Nielsen, approximately three-fourths of online shoppers (70 percent) believe in online reviews – a 15 percent increase from the 55 percent who trusted them as recently as four years ago. This makes web recommendations the No. 2 most trusted source of brand information and messaging, second only to personal advice given by family members and friends.

"The explosion of social networks and consumer-generated media over the last few years continues to have a significant impact on advertising as consumers' reliance on word-of-mouth in the decision-making process – either from people they know or online consumers they don't – has increased significantly," the Nielsen report adds.

In mobile devices we don't trust

On the other end of the spectrum, however, is mobile devices. Few consumers trusted promotional messages and advertisements served to them through their smartphones and tablets – only 33 percent had faith in display ads on mobile devices, while a mere 29 percent believed in mobile text ads.

In general, paid media garnered less trust than organic earned media, so the problem may be with the way retail brands are engaging consumers, rather than the platform through which they have these communications.

"When it comes to traditional, paid media, while nearly half of consumers around the world say they trust television (47 percent), magazine (47 percent) and newspaper ads (46 percent), confidence declined by 24 percent, 20 percent and 25 percent, respectively, between 2009 and 2011," the news source added.

As it is, many consumers consider smartphones a top shopping companion, as they enable shoppers to compare prices, look up reviews and do other research while in-store.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Wednesday, April 18th, 2012 at 10:00 am .