Commerce

According to eMarketer, the number of people around the world accessing the internet using smartphones reached 2.39 billion in 2017. These mobile users are spending hours each day on their phones, completing tasks, and consuming media in a highly customized environment of apps they have chosen to download and regularly interact with. Brands are trying […]

Anybody with a smartphone in their pocket has probably experienced a micro-moment. In fact, you’ve probably already experienced a few today and you may not have even noticed. According to Google, “Micro-moments occur when people reflexively turn to a device—increasingly a smartphone—to act on a need to learn something, do something, discover something, watch something, or […]

For so long, commerce businesses have been dedicating the vast majority of their marketing dollars to simply gaining new customers and leaving it at that. Customer acquisition will always be important, but many retailers are now seeing the enormous value returning customers add to their initial marketing investments and are capitalizing on these existing relationships […]

Technological disruption has and will continue to put pressure on traditional retailers and those businesses directly servicing consumers to meet and exceed relentless expectations. This digital disruption is also noticeably impacting the traditional B2B customer experience (CX). Businesses which have historically sold to other businesses are increasingly transforming to optimize support for self-service. In many cases, […]

While augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technology has been around for a while, the processing power required to create a great user experience (UX) meant limited availability to the average consumer. But now, with more powerful devices and technology like Apple’s ARKit, people are walking around with that power in their pocket. The opportunities […]

Online retailers around the world agree that shopping cart abandonment is a big problem. An average of nearly 75% of shopping carts were abandoned in the United States during Cyber Week last year, according to eMarketer. Cart abandonment factors such as indecision and wanting to shop around more are leading consumers to walk away during […]

Austin Carr just published “The Future of Retail in the Age of Amazon,” in Fast Company on the 24th of November. In it, he outlines four key takeaways for how successful retailers are innovating and evolving to remain competitive with their brick-and-mortar experiences. “Retail is under huge pressure, but the death of stores is greatly […]

Today we’re going to go over how to generate barcodes in HTML-formatted store prints available in the IBM Sterling Web Store for Commerce (WSC) 9.4 and higher versions. Most of the big retailers are now using the Web Store for their In-Store Customer Pickup and Ship-From-Store business models. These store prints are used by the store associate (SA) for picking and packing operations. […]

Data security is the first and foremost requirement of all retail implementations. Once you have installed Sterling OMS, all sensitive data like database passwords is stored as clear text in application property files. Since encryption of property data in Sterling OMS is not provided as a default feature, the decisions about what type of data must […]

Recent events indicate a digital disruption is afoot – and ecommerce cannot ignore it. Commerce business models must change to satisfy increasing customer expectations across the B2C and B2B spectrum. In this series, explore the three major areas where you can start innovating to transform your existing commerce business model. We previously looked at re-vamping […]

I recently wrote “What Retailers Can Learn From Walmart’s Incredible E-Commerce Growth In 2017” for Forbes.com. Why? This year, Walmart posted an impressive 60% year-over-year e-commerce growth, and then Walmart announced it will sharply scale back store openings to focus more acutely on E-Commerce. So I wanted to take a look at what tactics have helped to drive this […]

Among the major headlines of 2017, many have involved the shifting landscape of retail and eCommerce. Most notably was Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods. These events indicate a digital disruption is afoot – and eCommerce is not immune to its effects. The disruption can’t be ignored. Commerce business models must change to satisfy increasing customer […]