When shopping for gifts for their loved ones, many consumers used their smartphones as their primary shopping tools. According to the IBM Smarter Commerce Benchmark, approximately 10.1 percent of total Valentine's Day sales were made via smartphones, up nearly threefold from the same time frame in 2011.

Apple's mobile devices continued to be the most popular shopping tools for American consumers. Approximately 5.5 percent of total web traffic stemmed from the iPhone and 4.9 percent came from the iPad. By comparison, Google's Android accounted for only 4.4 percent of mobile traffic.

"The Valentine’s data is proof positive that the online and mobile shopping habits witnessed over the November and December holidays are not fleeting," the IBM report noted. "Rather, a permanent change is in effect with the empowered consumer turning to mobile devices not just for blockbuster shopping days but for all holidays in between."

Jewelry, intimate apparel, health and beauty products and flowers were the most popular items sold through mobile devices.

A forecast from the National Retail Federation for Valentine's Day suggested that spending would be up considerably this year compared to 2011.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012 at 9:37 am .

Retailers have developed somewhat of an irrational fear of shoppers using tablets and other mobile devices as they browse store shelves. They think that consumers will find a product in-store, look online, find a better price and then purchase the item through the ecommerce site instead of buying it through them.

While the jury is still out on how many people actually do that and whether that's a legitimate threat to their business, a new survey from JiWire does suggest that retailers may be able to leverage tablets to encourage in-store sales. According to the report, approximately 75 percent of on-the-go consumers take action after being served with a location-specific message.

After seeing a location-specific ad, 31 percent will click on the display, 21 percent will search for the nearest location and 21 percent will conduct additional research. Breaking behaviors down further, Android users are more likely to search for nearby locations, Apple device owners tend to conduct additional research and BlackBerry users opt to purchase products immediately.

"It is exciting to see how important location-specific messaging is to consumers today," said David Staas, senior vice president of marketing at JiWire. "As the on-the-go audience demands locally relevant information, brands need to focus on reaching consumers in and around their locations."

The mobile audience tends to skew young – consumers between the ages of 25 and 34 are the most likely to comparison shop in store or make purchases, accounting for 39 percent of the shoppers who partake in these activities. Highlighting the importance of providing them discounts and promotions, 21 percent of these respondents were also likely to search for coupons while in store.

"In a world of constant connectivity, it's no surprise that consumers rely on their mobile devices to make purchases. This recent phenomenon has caused online coupons to take off and become more popular over the years. In fact, 34 percent of consumers have redeemed an online coupon in the past 90 days," the report adds.

It's crucial that retailers engage consumers through the communication channels they are using. For merchants targeting younger consumers, that means smartphones and tablets. However, brands reaching an older audience may want to consider a different approach.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012 at 9:35 am .

Small retailers looking to do some cost-efficient marketing may want to consider a recent promotional offer launched by Twitter and American Express. The first 10,000 eligible businesses that register through the payment processor's site will be provided with $100 in free Twitter advertising.

"Small businesses were among the first to embrace Twitter as a way to connect and interact with consumers in real-time," said Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter. "Today, we're announcing a simple way for small businesses to amplify their voices on Twitter and reach a new set of potential customers using our Promoted Products."

The Promoted Products lineup includes Promoted Tweets, which are displayed within users' timelines, and Promoted Trends, which are featured on the website's side bar. For example, an electronics retail store could promote an upcoming sale via users' timelines or try to acquire more followers by launching a Promoted Trend.

While Twitter definitely plays second fiddle to Facebook in terms of global audience, retailers can still use the platform to reach a considerable number of consumers. More than 200 million prospective shoppers are members of the social network.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Tuesday, February 21st, 2012 at 9:19 am .

PayPal, the eBay-owned online payment processor, has been vocal about its attempts to transition from the internet to the real world. Executive Don Kingsborough recently expanded on the company's plans to facilitate that shift, the Ottawa Citizen reports.

The digital payment processor has been particularly observant of the recent battles between retailers and traditional financial institutions over swipe fees. PayPal knows this is a contentious topic right now and senses an opportunity to win favor with retailers by subsidizing its new point-of-sale processing service, which implies merchants will have to pay significantly less than traditional fees if they opt for PayPal.

Discounts on fees aren't the only trick up PayPal's sleeve. The internet company also plans to share shopping and purchase data with retail brands, which will give them more insight into what people are buying and how customers are spending their money.

While PayPal still hasn't discussed how it will roll its new service out to retailers, the company plans to work with the biggest brands in the sector. Already, PayPal has partnered with Home Depot and an Office Depot test is in the works. The payment processor hopes to have more than 20 major retailers involved with the test program before the end of 2012.

"We are going to do it with the greatest brands in the world – Home Depot and every other top 100 retailer," Kingsborough told the news source. "There isn't a major brand who we haven't talked to."

PayPal's move to the physical world has caught the eye of many retail industry analysts, who categorize the shift as a high-risk, high-reward gambit. Consumers tend to prefer trusted financial companies when it comes to payment processing, but the recent falling out between merchants and credit card companies, along with rising ecommerce sales, may serve as a perfect storm for PayPal.

Whatever the outcome, PayPal is pursuing its expansion goals aggressively.

"2012 is trial and learn. 2013 and beyond is when we really scale it in the U.S. and globally and across categories," eBay chief executive officer John Donahoe notes. "That's the goal I'm holding Don to in 2012 – do we have a scalable product?"

Credit and debit cards remain popular, with a recent report from First Data suggesting transaction volumes of credit and debit cards increased during January.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Tuesday, February 21st, 2012 at 9:17 am .

The National Retail Federation is backing a proposal to cut corporate taxes. According to Matthew Shay, president and chief executive at the NRF, the move will have a ripple effect on the economy, enabling businesses to hire more people, lower prices, drive demand and generally improve the economy.

While the White House is slated to publish a more detailed version of the proposal later this week, President Barack Obama noted that such a plan would close loopholes and help the government lower the overall tax rate without increasing the size of the federal deficit.

"While the budget overall is always a contentious issue, corporate tax reform is a unique bipartisan opportunity," Shay told The Hill.

"American companies face the second-highest corporate tax rates in the world, and virtually everyone agrees that the time has come to do something about it," he added.

President Obama spoke extensively about strategies that would enable small businesses – such as retail stores – to enjoy more success during his recent 2012 State of the Union address.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Sunday, February 19th, 2012 at 2:12 am .

An increasing number of companies are seeking to boost retail merchandising strategies through the use of "social videos."

What are social videos? They are short video segments that companies can post on social networks, blogs or their websites that hope to engage consumers while offering them practical advice, including how-to's and question-and-answer sessions.

In a recent interview on the website Video-Commerce, Zappo's senior manager of photo and video, Laurie Me'Chelle Gates, shared ways in which the company was using the channel to boost sales, decrease the number of returns and improve the overall customer shopping experience.

"It's not so much about product information as it is about product explorations," Gates told the source. "It's helping our customers out with questions like: Is this the right gear for my camping trip? How do I tie a tie? Or, what’s in season right now? Our ultimate goal is to reduce the barrier between our online shopper and the merchant delivering the Zappos level of service."

This is especially relevant with consumers' growing desire for more social interactions with brands. An inforgraphic from Zendesk showed that 62 percent of consumers wished that businesses engaged more with them via social networks.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Friday, February 17th, 2012 at 8:16 am .

Many shoppers tend to be procrastinators, waiting until the last possible minute to purchase gifts. Fortunately, a number of retailers decided to offer special promotions to those who didn't do their Valentine's Day shopping until the day before the holiday.

According to a recent survey, 22 percent of consumers waited until 48 hours before Valentine's Day to buy cards or other gifts for their loved ones. Not looking to give up sales to retail stores, a number of online etailers offered free next-day shipping on orders placed as late as 6 p.m. on Monday.

BlueNile.com, a jewelry etailer, was one of the companies offering this specific deal. Ice.com launched a similar promotion for orders of more than $200.

"Nineteen percent of Valentine’s Day gift shoppers say they will purchase candy for the holiday and 9 percent say they'll buy jewelry," Internet Retailer notes, citing a survey by PriceGrabber. "More than one-third of survey respondents (34 percent) say they will shop for Valentine’s Day gifts online."

According to separate research conducted by the National Retail Federation, consumer spending for Valentine's Day is expected to surpass $17 billion.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Friday, February 17th, 2012 at 2:06 am .

Retailers currently not using Facebook's Connect feature, which enables users to log into ecommerce websites with their Facebook credentials, may want to rethink this omission. According to a new report from Sociable Labs, Americans who log into a retail site with their Facebook credentials are nine times more likely to share content than those who don't.

Nisan Gabbay, CEO of Social Labs, notes how crucial this is for retail brands, explaining that each share essentially translates into free exposure for a business. Each time consumers share content, they are expressing their advocacy to friends or followers – that could be anywhere from 100 people to more than 1,000, depending on the user.

"The big benefit of social log-ins is that it makes the social sharing experience that much easier and more compelling for the consumer," Gabbay told Internet Retailer.

Considering the sheer number of Facebook users – upward of 800 million potential buyers worldwide – the social network has a substantial reach. Retail merchants need to make use of the site as a part of their marketing efforts.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Friday, February 17th, 2012 at 2:04 am .

Despite January's relative retail merchandising success in boosting sales for the second month in a row, according a panel of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News, consumers may not be espousing such a rosy vision for the future.

The latest Thomsom Reuters/University of Michigan preliminary index of consumer sentiment shows that optimism fell to 72.5 in January, from 75 in December, a separate article from Bloomberg reports.

Prior to the index's release, Bloomberg News predicted that January would see only a slight fall in sentiment to 74.8. However, a 22-cent average increase in the price of a gallon of gasoline over the year has stifled the will to spend among some consumers.

"It's likely due to the gas prices and some payback for the strong gains we've seen in recent months," Gus Faucher, a senior economist at PNC Financial Services Group, told the source. "The recovery is going to continue and spending will be good, but not great."

Additionally, experts believe that an improving employment rate could help fuel spending and consumer confidence.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Friday, February 17th, 2012 at 1:13 am .

There seems to be differing opinions on how the retail sector will perform in 2012. While a recent Deloitte report offered a not-so-cheery forecast, new research from Customer Growth Partners suggests the opposite.

According to CGP's report, retail sales are expected to grow by 5.7 percent in 2012. Falling household and credit debt levels and higher savings rates will encourage consumers to spend more money. Credit is down almost 20 percent from its 2008 peak and was flat during the fourth quarter of 2011.

"After sharply ratcheting down expenditures … consumers have indeed resumed spending, amazingly enough, at about the same 5 percent year-over-year growth rate seen prior to the recession," said Craig Johnson, president of Customer Growth Partners. "In short, American consumers have now completed a historic 'reset' fueling the strongest retail rebound seen in decades."

According to a separate report from IBM, male consumers may be leading the charge. The firm believes men's apparel was the biggest sales driver in 2011 and expects that trend to continue into 2012.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Wednesday, February 15th, 2012 at 2:39 am .