Bill Hanifin

To me, the big question is whether a coalition style rewards offering such as Shopkick becomes the glue that brings merchants and customers together or whether the LBS app providers (e.g. Foursquare) become more focused and provide a better channel for merchants to deliver their own incentive and rewards...

Online grocery ordering is a failed experiment in the US for the moment. Peapod and others made a good run, but in the end the adoption was not there.

In the UK and other EU nations, consumers are well indoctrinated to purchase groceries online and have them delivered to...

Doritos had solicited user generated content last year and it was the first thing I thought about when I saw the dog/missing cat ad this year. In fact, each of the Doritos commercials had a distinct edge to them, making me vote for the brand overall rather than just...

There are clear benefits to using an internal social network for retailers. Why wait until the Christmas party, the employee summer beach party, etc., to get people together?

More importantly, why restrict communications to formal channels such as email which can be imperfect at times?

Using the network medium...

If the transgression had been put forth by an online retailer other than Amazon, I might say "no." Since Amazon is the largest online retailer in the world and has made reviews such an important part of the stream of content for each item, the answer is a resounding...

I don't think we need to see an explosion in the number of cause related businesses for this to become a trend. There only need be a handful of sincerely planned and well executed efforts to serve the needs of the Millennial generation and others who care about the...

The suggestions made in the article are a very good start to connecting brick and mortar merchants with their customers in the social world.

I would add consideration of geo-fencing to be able to connect "in the moment" deals with consumers actually in store.

I would also use QR...

Two variables seem important to me.

1. Does a retailer create a mobile application or enable the mobile web, i.e. make their web site work well on a small screen?

2. Is there a significant difference between targeting future hopes on smartphones or tablets?

To me, optimizing the mobile...

Target is on to something, bringing some shiny objects to lure customers in to the store. Hopefully there is identified brand affinity for the "Shops" that Target is bringing in and therefore sales will ensue.

In any event, one would hope that increased foot traffic will yield more sales...

Taking the vending machine to another level is logical and in settings like a college campus seem to be the best place for trial of the concept.

More impressive than the machine and its technology would be the wisdom in selecting which products are available through the device.

I...