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Tell Us What You Think
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Where Are You Spending Your IT Budget?
Retail technology budgets change due to any number of reasons — from the health of the economy to changes in technology. As a retailer, how are you spending your IT budget right now, and how do you see it changing going into next year?
Each year, Integrated Solutions For Retailers conducts a survey of retailers to determine where they are concentrating their IT budgets presently, and into the near future. This data, combined with expert opinion and analysis, is presented in our annual December Retail Spending issue. We need your help to make the survey a success. If you are a retailer, you are eligible to participate in this 10-minute survey and have a shot to win one of three $100 Visa gift cards that will be drawn once the survey results are tallied. Your answers will be held in complete confidentiality, and no individuals, retailers, or retail brands will be specified in the report. Only cumulative survey results and anonymous anecdotes will be published.
The survey will only run for a limited time, so be one of the first to complete the survey and enter for your chance at one of the $100 Visa gift cards. Just click here to get started!
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From The Editor's Desk
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 Employee Training Combats Back-To-School Shoplifting
By Erin Harris, associate editor
The back-to-school shopping season is among us, and parents and students are heading in your direction for deals on everything from backpacks to juice boxes to futons. The back-to-school/back-to-college shopping season is the second biggest consumer spending event of the year (winter holidays rank first). Undoubtedly, inventory levels are larger than normal, and your traffic has increased or will increase drastically in the next two weeks. As you stock your shelves to the rafters, remember that with increased inventory and traffic comes a need for additional antitheft and safety measures. Your LP efforts need to be stronger than usual to accommodate this busy shopping season. |
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Featured Integrated Solutions For Retailers Article
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Cloud Offers Advantages For Sales Tax Compliance
By Matt Pillar, editor in chief
Navigating e-commerce tax regulation complexity is a daunting endeavor. Some service providers are leveraging the cloud to manage compliance in real time. Rory Rawlings, founder and chief tax automation officer at Avalara, shares some insight into the impact of pending tax legislation and cloud-based sales tax application management for retailers.
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Guest Expert Series
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 Adding Location Analytics To Your Enterprise Business Systems Provides Greater Opportunities For Successful Decisions, Guest Series Part 1
By Chris Ovens, director of sales, location analytics, Esri
Innovative, successful companies discover meaningful patterns in their data to build winning strategies. At more than $38 billion per year worldwide, corporate investment in mining insights from analysis in the business environment is staggering. In fact, $8 billion is being spent on business intelligence (BI) systems alone — CRMs, ERPs, and the tools and applications that break down corporate data silos to enable sharing, collaboration, and near real-time use of this vast sea of data. |
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Featured Articles
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Mobile Retail Solutions Revolutionize The Customer Experience
Winning customers has never been more of a challenge. Customers are more knowledgeable than ever. They are able to easily research products, pricing and availability any time of day, wherever they happen to be.
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Where Do Kiosks Fit In The Mobile World?
By Ron Bowers, senior vice president of business development, Frank Mayer and Associates
Given the increased importance of mobile as a shopping tool, and as our “concierge” for other essential tasks, it is natural to ask what this trend means for the future of traditional kiosks. Some have posed the question in headline-grabbing fashion.
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Managing The iEverything Enterprise In A BYOD World
Powerful enterprise applications can now be delivered to almost any device, anywhere, at any time and take advantage of tremendous computing power available in consumer devices, such as smartphones and tablets. Regardless of whether these devices are corporate issued or personally owned, almost every IT department is experiencing the effects of unprecedented smart device and “Bring-Your-Own-Device” (BYOD) policy adoption in their enterprise.
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The Opportunities And Challenges Facing Mobile WFM
Many retailers had barely mastered the conversion from Excel and paper–based workforce management (WFM) systems to dedicated solutions when the mobile revolution began to hyperaccelerate their adoption.
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Industry Talk
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 Is The LP Foundation Creating A New Breed Of Retail LP Professionals?
By Bob Johns, associate editor
I recently had a chance to talk with Gene Smith, president of the Loss Prevention Foundation, to find out a little more about the organization and what it does. One thing I noticed right away is how passionate Gene is about loss prevention (LP). He is striving to help the profession evolve and become truly professional. “The new loss prevention professional may not come from a security background. Rather, they may come from more nontraditional areas such as operations,” Smith notes. As LP technologies have changed, so have the roles of LP managers. Smith is helping retailers to view LP from a holistic business approach that affects profitability. LP affects a retailer’s profitability through both financials and operations, not just from reducing shoplifting. |
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Industry Event
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 MRC Semi-Annual Platinum Meeting — Seattle
Our "Merchant-led" Seattle Platinum Meeting, October 1 to 3, will focus on in-depth group discussions and expert opinion sharing concerning future trends in the electronic payments and fraud sector. This unique panelist format will be highly interactive and engage merchant members on issues most vital to our industry. Keynote speakers include Avivah Litan, vice president and distinguished analyst from Gartner! Click on the banner to register and to see the latest agenda.
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Featured Webinar
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DiCentral Vendor Compliance Summer School |
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DiCentral's Mary Kleespies and Steve Babbitt will explore vendor compliance best practices in this three-part webinar series. These summer school sessions will answer questions surrounding the benefits of vendor compliance and will highlight the efforts necessary for suppliers to meet retail business and EDI requirements. |
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Retail Solutions Online Welcomes
Its Newest Supplier |
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Don't miss the newest Retail Solutions Online storefront: |
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Stay tuned for more new suppliers in future Retail Solutions Online newsletters. |
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Bulletin Board
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Wanted Dead Or Alive |
Wanted Alive: The Oldest Working Advantage LX Or Blaster Printer We Can Find!
Send us the serial number and a video of your operating Advantage LX or Blaster printer. Every video submission will receive a Starbucks gift card. The person with the oldest working printer will win a $500 Visa gift card! |
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Industry Event
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Retail WFM Leadership Summit 2012 |
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Mark your calendar and register for the Retail WFM Leadership Summit 2012, convening in San Diego on August 23. Retail executives, strategists, and workforce management experts will come together to explore best practice models, leadership case studies, retail WFM benchmarks, and tech-enabled strategies driving customer engagement and workforce efficiency. Share lessons learned with Tiffany & Co., Krispy Kreme, dELiA*s, The Shoe Company, and more! |
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ISR Digital Edition
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Integrated Solutions For Retailers is excited to announce the release of its latest version of the magazine's digital edition. The August 2012 edition is fully optimized for mobile devices and features the latest technology to speed up page loading times and enhance the reading experience. Enjoy! |
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