Insights

This month, my colleague and I had the opportunity to attend the first ever Remode conference. We were pleasantly surprised by the quality of speakers and content presented. There was a heavy focus on sustainability and radical transparency, which offer great opportunities for brands who have yet to successfully implement them.

With conference organizers staffing panels of upwards of 80 retail and e-commerce conferences each year, the content can become monotonous for those of us who attend a handful or more. However, that wasn’t the case at this year’s Decoded Future Summit.

Both social media and seasonal gift marketing are critical to every retailer's success. The savviest of brands are combining the two to reach their customers on multiple channels this holiday season.

Providing your shoppers with visual inspiration is essential in digital retail marketing. Here are some retailers and brands that are doing it well on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, LIKEtoKNOW.it and Pinterest.

In contrast to the many media reports claiming in-store shopping is dead, GPShopper's recent research uncovered that, in fact, it's still the preferred shopping method for a majority of Americans. As for shoppable social ads and subscription boxes? They didn't fare so well.

Other key takeaways from the 1,100+ consumers surveyed:

• 58% prefer to shop for clothing at long-standing physical stores over newer retailers.
  
  
• Only 7% became a repeat customer of a product they received in a subscription box.

If done right, push notifications can drive app engagement, revenue and retention in a huge way.

But far too often, brands and retailers become blast happy – over sending generic messages and irritating the consumer. In turn, app users are 60% more likely to turn off notifications altogether.