Retail Marketing - Shopping Center Marketing

This just in from Google Labs as they launch their Social Search experiement;
“Sign in to Google and do a search. If there’s relevant web content written by people in your social circle, it will automatically show up at the bottom of your search results under a section called “Results from people in your social circle.”
To [...]

The mobile phone as a payment and promotional device is coming to retail. The questions are when, what processes and under whose governance?
The RIS mobile survey published in May 2009 suggested an answer about when and processes. The survey finds that 47 percent of retailers will have a plan or be in pilot mode by [...]

Found a great little diagram for anyone looking for some basic steps for engaging customers in the social media world. Socialnomics has the full article about viewing the social media sector simply.
Companies often enter the social media fray and jump straight to step four, selling.  This is the worst thing you can do, and it [...]

Remember the food of the month club? You pay a flat fee and they send you something fresh and tasty once a month. Well reality TV star Kim Kardashian just launched a new site that takes the food of the month premise and applies it to the hottest shoes of the month.
Each month, ShoeDazzle’s personal [...]

Disney is teaming up with Apple’s retail team to reinvent their retail outlets, turning them from just stores into “Imagination Parks”. Over the next 5 years, 340 Disney Stores will be turned into interactive retail experiences.
“The world does not need another place to sell Disney merchandise — this only works if it’s an experience,” said [...]

The brainchild of fashion retailer Jack Menashe and award-winning designer James Mansour, the storied 163-year-old venue in Manhattan’s Flatiron district is being transformed into a three-story shopper’s paradise.
Limelight Marketplace will house an exceptional scope of retailers where uptown merges with downtown, and street meets luxury – with 80 shops showcasing an eclectic range of retail [...]

Will digital books catch fire this holiday? According to an online survey, 1 in 5 shoppers said they planned to buy an electronic book reader such as a Sony Reader or Amazon Kindle this year.
When asked what they would like to get as a gift this year, about 1 in 10 cited a digital book [...]

There may be a few positives to come out of the current recession. Consumers are now turning to their debit cards rather than charging purchases to their credit cards. Good for consumers, not such a rosy picture for retailers. How can retailers go about encouraging to consumers to spend in this down time? Plenty of [...]

Despite this growth and the benefits social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter afford, online retailers should recognize these sites as a starting point for online interaction. Ultimately, retailers should actively leverage these networks to drive fans back to their sites.
Why Retailers Should Drive Fans Back to Their Sites

Retailers should use social networks [...]