3 Ways to Improve the Retail Customer Experience With AI

Customer experience is quickly becoming the brand differentiator, and there’s no customer experience game-changer potentially bigger than artificial intelligence (AI).In a recent market analysis from UBS, retail ranked among the top industries predicted to be most impacted by AI. It's easy to see why. While online giants like Amazon.com and online disruptors such as Stitch Fix dominate headlines, 85 percent of retail still takes place offline.As such, there’s untold opportunities to merge online and offline experiences, connect what shoppers browse online or offline with personalized offers, and deploy AI and machine learning in ways that boost both in-store and online experiences. Retailers will want to seize the potential. Half of consumers say customer experience is what drives their decision to make a purchase, beating both quality and price. As retailers gear up for the next holiday season, here are three ways that AI will impact the customer experience by making it:

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Productive Edge is a customer experience, digital strategy and technology services company delivering transformation enterprise solutions for partners around the world.

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How AI is changing the face of modern web design for retailers

Article | February 15, 2024

Consumers take just 50 milliseconds to decide whether your website is worth staying on. It's therefore important for websites to be of high-quality in order to make sales. For online retailers, items need to be presented in an enticing way that convinces customers to buy. Web design plays an important role in this. While a website needs to appeal aesthetically, it also needs to provide a simple user experience from landing on the page through to purchase.

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Ecommerce Merchandising

Card Payments for Dummies

Article | March 18, 2024

At my current company Monizze, we issue social vouchers, like meal, eco and gift vouchers. These vouchers are consumed using a specific Monizze payment card via a physical terminal. As a result, I come into contact with card payments on a daily basis. Unfortunately, I am still far from being a card expert, but along the years I can say I have built up a good basic understanding of how a card payment happens. As I had to collect information from different sources to get this first good understanding, I thought it might be interesting to share my summary for "dummies" of how card payments work. First let us have a look at the card itself. A card is just a plastic carrier on which a design is printed. Afterwards a chip (an embedded microprocessor) is attached to the card, on which 1 or more applications can be deployed. A card with such a chip is often also called a smart card or an EMV card, with EMV an abbreviation for "Europay MasterCard VISA", which are the 3 companies that originally established this global electronic transaction standard. A card does not need to have a chip, some cards only have a bar code or QR code on them, while others have a magnetic stripe. Obviously an EMV chip card is more secure than those other models. Most EMV chip cards today are Dual Interface chip cards. This means the card can be used in both contact (i.e. the card is put in the terminal to read the chip) and contactless (i.e. the card communicates via an NFC antenna with the terminal) mode. This should not be confused with co-branded / co-badged cards, which exist quite a lot in Europe. As many countries still have their local payment method (like Bancontact in Belgium, Girocard in Germany, Cartes Bancaires in France, PagoBancomat in Italy, MultiBanco in Portugal…), most banks in those countries issue such a co-badged card, which supports both this local payment method and a more international payment method. E.g. in Belgium almost all debit cards are co-badged with Bancontact and Maestro (Maestro being an international payment method owned by MasterCard). When fabrication of EMV chip cards starts, all cards are the same. Of course by printing the design on the card and personalizing the card (with the name, card number…) you get a specific card. Additionally there is a personalization of the EMV chip. On the chip the specific application(s) of the card is deployed, as well as the specific personal information. This personal information stored on the card consists of the card number (also called the PAN number = Primary Account number), the expiration date, a security code (also called CVV = Card Verification Value or CVC = Card Verification Code), a number of cryptographic keys and the list of CVM checks (CVM = Card Verification Methods). This list indicates which type of security check should be applied and can depend on the type of payment (e.g. contact versus contactless), what the terminal supports and the amount. E.g. the CVM list can indicate that a contactless transaction can be executed up to 50 EUR without asking for a PIN. The cryptographic keys ensure the necessary security. E.g. they are used to calculate a cryptogram (based on one of the stored secret keys and the info of the transaction), which is sent along to the issuer. The issuer can then verify that the transaction message was not altered along the way by calculating itself the cryptogram and comparing it with the provided cryptogram. In the same way, it is possible to encrypt a PIN code and send it to the issuer for verification. The PIN code can be stored on the chip and verified by the chip directly. This so-called PIN offline verification is however only possible when the chip can be read by the terminal. In case of a contactless transaction requiring a PIN, card issuers usually work with PIN online, which means the PIN is sent in an encrypted way to the issuer, who verifies the correctness of the PIN, before authorizing the transaction. The information on the chip of a card can also be virtualized. This means that instead of the card sending the NFC signal (in contactless mode) to the terminal, it is also possible that your smartphone sends out this signal (and emulates the card). This can be a specific app, using HCE (= Host Card Emulation), but this technique is only available on Android phones, as Apple does not give access to the NFC antenna. A more common technique is of course Apple Pay and Google Pay, where you onboard your card on the Apple/Google infrastructure and your smartphone emulates the physical card. Now that we have clarified what the card does, it is good to have a look at how a payment works. The first step is of course telling the terminal (POS = Point of Sales terminal) how much the customer needs to pay. This can be inputted directly on the terminal, but large retailers have of course an integration with their cash register (= ECR = Electronic Cash Register). This integration allows to pass immediately info like the amount, which card types can be accepted (cashier can select a specific payment method) and potential other reference information. Obviously, a lot of cash register systems exist (e.g. Lightspeed, Square, Casio, Toshiba…) and also a lot of protocols to integrate ECRs with terminals (e.g. VIC protocol) and finally also a lot of different terminals (e.g. Wordline, Ingenico, CCV, Adyen, SumUp, VIVA Wallet, Cetrel, Loyaltek…). All these differences make those integrations quite a mess. The terminal will then read the card (contact or contactless) and determine which verification methods need to be applied. Once the verifications on the terminal are ok, the payment is sent to the Acquirer (often the merchant’s bank), which sends the payment to the Issuer (usually the bank of the card holder, which issued the card). This Issuer validates if the card is still active, if the PIN code is correct (in case of PIN online), if the customer is allowed to do a transaction at this merchant (e.g. card might be disabled for foreign transactions) and whether the customer has sufficient funds to execute the payment. In case of a positive reply, the payment is considered as successful, even though the actual settlement will usually happen later. This settlement consists of the acquirer requesting payment to the issuing bank, the issuing bank debiting the cardholder’s account and transmitting the money to the acquirer bank and the acquirer bank crediting the merchant’s account.the cardholder’s account and transmitting the money to the acquirer bank and the acquirer bank crediting the merchant’s account. For the communication between the terminal, acquirer and issuer a "Payment Network", like VISA, MasterCard, American Express, UnionPay, Bancontact… is used. This payment network sets all the rules of how these different players should interact. Additionally there are multiple protocols of how terminals can communicate with the Acquirer, like CTAP, EP2, Nexo (EPAS), IFSF, STD70, ABI-CB (Italy)…, making it for international players very hard to support all local payment methods. It is also important to understand the difference between a "Four Corner model" (also called a Four-Party scheme, Open Scheme or Open Loop payment model) and a "Three Corner Model" (also called a Three-Party scheme, Closed Scheme and Closed loop payment model). The first model is the model described above and is the most widely used. E.g. VISA, MasterCard and UnionPay use this model. In the second model ("Three Corner Model"), the issuer, acquirer and payment network are the same party. This means the payment network provides the card to the card holder and contracts with the merchant to configure/setup the terminal. Typical examples are Diners Club, Discover Card and American Express, but often also niche payment methods, like the social vouchers (e.g. meal voucher payments) of Monizze fall in this category (even though in many countries, social vouchers are also handled via an "Open Loop" model based on VISA or MasterCard). As you can see a card payment involves a large number of parties. While cash registers and terminals are bought or rented by merchants and typically include also a monthly service fee, the other players are usually paid per transaction. The Acquirer will recover those transaction fees from the merchant through a "Merchant service charge". The Acquirer however keeps only a small part of this fee, as around 20% of this fee (the so-called scheme fee) is going to the payment network (e.g. VISA or MasterCard) and up to 70% (the so-called interchange fee) to the Issuer. Part of this interchange fee is often used in the form of rewards (e.g. cashbacks) to the customer, thus encouraging the card holder to use his card as much as possible. Card payments are clearly undergoing a major transformation. On the one hand, there is a strong push towards a cashless society. This trend, strongly accelerated by the Covid crisis, increases the use of card payments. On the other hand, there is a trend to replace the physical cards by payments with smartphones. This includes the exponential rise of the use of Apple Pay and Google Pay, but also new payment techniques, often based on QR code scanning (like e.g. Payconiq in Belgium). Additionally due to the aggressive take-over strategy of the 2 major American players (VISA and MasterCard) in the last decade, there is a strong feeling, especially in Europe, that there is need for more competition and a new European player. As a result, several large European banks are joining forces to create a European alternative. It is however doubtful that this new initiative will be successful, as new technologies and payment methods, like PSD2 Payment Initiation, SEPA Request to Pay (SRTP), instant payments, CBDCs… can likely give better (more frictionless and cheaper) alternatives to the traditional card payment schemes.

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POS Solutions

Implementing Marketplace Optimization Tools for B2B Success

Article | April 4, 2024

Marketplace optimization serves as a gold mine for businesses, helping them attain key marketing goals. Read the article to discover leading marketplace optimization tools for increased sales and ROI. Contents 1. Marketplace Optimization: The Tale of Visibility 2. Core Benefits of Marketplace Optimization 3. Boosting POS Strategies with Location Intelligence 4. Top 10 Best-selling Optimization Tools for Market Dominance 4.1 Stackline 4.2 Perpetua 4.3 Teikametrics 4.4 Quartile 4.5 Wiser Solutions 4.6 Intentwise 4.7 CommerceIQ 4.8 Feedvisor 4.9 A2X 4.10 eDesk 5. Final Thoughts 1. Marketplace Optimization: The Tale of Visibility Marketplace optimization (MPO) enables businesses to enhance their selling capabilities and rank higher on search engines, leveraging diverse signals like search keywords, product listings, seller metrics, etc. The MPO process essentially includes multiple best practices, such as optimizing product descriptions, fine-tuning advertisements, and employing locational intelligence, which together focus on ensuring superior execution of businesses’ selling operations. The global online marketplace optimization tools market size is projected to touch USD 2159.22 million by the end of 2027, exhibiting a CAGR of 19.32% during the forecast period. [Source: Business Research Insights] Significantly, as catalysts for greater brand visibility and POS strategies, today’s leading marketplace optimization tools help B2B businesses elevate their e-commerce platforms, delivering the best results and increased customer satisfaction. With such notable benefits and prominence, the MPO process has become a shining protagonist in B2B's tale of visibility. 2. Core Benefits of Marketplace Optimization Along with increased website traffic, conformity to prominent sales acceleration trends, and enhanced customer engagement, marketplace optimization tools usher in many advantages for B2B businesses. The prominent merits of these include: Better Performances With actionable insights into businesses, marketplace optimization ensures better e-commerce performances, allowing companies to make end-to-end forecasts and informed marketing decisions. Enhanced Brand Visibility The MPO processes help businesses improve quality scores for search keywords and fine-tune their product listings. It also heightens their brand presence across different filters and categories, enabling them to reach wider audiences. Targeted Marketing By incorporating processes like locational intelligence, marketplace optimization further makes for precision in lead targeting and efficient resource allocation, ensuring increased conversion rates and brand loyalty. Improved POS Tactics Businesses can augment their pricing and inventory management processes with marketplace optimization, ensuring optimized POS strategies. This optimization enables companies to set attractive prices and maintain the right products in stock, rendering the checkout processes effortless for buyers. Customized Ad Campaigns With an effective MPO strategy, companies can also gain beneficial insights into the behavior of target audience segments. Such information, in turn, helps businesses create laser-focused campaigns with high-performing keywords, optimized content, and attractive product listings. Greater Profitability Marketplace optimization promises higher sales and lead conversion rates. It further promotes cross-selling and upselling through personalized advertisements, ushering in significant returns and meeting businesses’ marketplace objectives. 3. Boosting POS Strategies with Location Intelligence In today’s marketing world, location intelligence has emerged as an integral part of MPO processes, empowering businesses to boost their productivity and potentially earn peak financial gains. By leveraging geospatial data or location intelligence, companies can effortlessly assess crucial factors like customer demographics, economic factors, product demand, and competitor actions, which enable them to strategically optimize their e-commerce strategies for enhanced sales. Furthermore, the process enables companies to understand purchase behavior and customize their products and pricing according to regions, ensuring a practical POS approach and driving higher sales. From enhanced delivery logistics and product offerings to personalized marketing endeavors and customer experiences, location intelligence effectively promises multiple benefits to businesses and remains an essential tool for optimizing digital marketplaces. 4. Top 10 Best-selling Optimization Tools for Marketplace Dominance With prominent marketplace technology and tools, businesses successfully attain unparalleled customer confidence and expand their reach, enhancing the way online commerce works. Here’s a list of the top 10 best-selling optimization tools for inimitable marketplace success: 4.1 Stackline Launched in 2014, Stackline is a comprehensive e-commerce optimization tool for retailers and brands in the digital marketplace. It offers businesses crucial MPO signals, such as revenue metrics, commerce insights, and interaction data, enabling them to make informed decisions and POS strategies related to product pricing and stock availability. The AI-powered optimization tool Stackline further boasts multiple promising features that include: Market Insights: Stackline enhances businesses' marketing intelligence by providing comprehensive insights into buyers' behaviors, preferences, and trends. It enables companies to understand markets and engage their audiences for better returns. A Multi-retailer CRM: Through a notable multi-retailer CRM, the marketplace optimization tool empowers businesses to undertake customized marketing efforts, as customer data can be centralized and managed in the system for various MPO processes, including assessment of rating and reviews, targeted surveys, collection of customer feedback, and so on. Optimization of Ads: With Stackline, e-commerce companies can create powerful advertisements and campaigns, simplifying their advertising efforts and optimizing advertisement expenditure. Performance Monitoring: Stackline further lets businesses get a complete view of their e-commerce business data, including sales performance. It allows users to monitor and analyze crucial parameters, driving peak financial gains and enabling informed decisions. Handling Product Listings: The marketplace optimization tool also offers solutions for product listing management across multiple digital platforms, ensuring reliability, preciseness, and enhanced POS tactics. 4.2 Perpetua Perpetua is an advanced optimization tool for marketplace that serves the top e-commerce platforms globally. The tool primarily focuses on optimizing businesses’ advertising efforts, empowering them to attain their strategic goals by highlighting crucial metrics and assessing trends through next-generation machine learning and advanced algorithms. With easy task automation and crucial marketplace insights, Perpetua helps businesses ensure true e-commerce success. The chief features of the tool include: Advertisement Intelligence: With Perpetua, businesses can gain complete advertising intelligence, as the tool provides users with crucial marketplace data and insights. This data empowers them to show suitable ads to the right people on major e-commerce platforms, further enhancing sales and revenues. Simplification and Automation of Advertising Workflows: Optimizing processes like video and display advertising across leading marketplaces, Perpetua also helps businesses automate tasks and streamline their workflows. Such automation allows companies to implement more efficient advertisement strategies and customize their ads for better results and investment efficiency. Marketplace Insights: By rendering comprehensive insights into market performance, sales trends, competitors, market developments, and customers’ behavior at the POS, Perpetua effectively strengthens retailers’ decision-making processes, helping them devise better advertising techniques and driving higher ROI. Bidding Algorithms for Precise Targeting: Through intelligent bidding algorithms, Perpetua enables businesses to analyze crucial factors such as market trends and customer demographics, and helps them reach their target audiences with extraordinary precision. It offers companies tailored suggestions based on these analyses, ensuring the practical usage of advertising budget and better impact of ad campaigns. Comprehensive Sales Analytics: Showcasing the effectiveness of businesses’ advertisement expenditure, Perpetua’s all-inclusive sales analysis feature lets retailers leverage crucial insights into their sales performance, helping them improve their advertisement approach. 4.3 Teikametrics Facilitating innovative advertising, Teikametrics is a revolutionary e-commerce optimization tool that incorporates AI technology to help companies thrive on major e-commerce platforms. It renders solutions for advertisement optimization, marketplace insights, and inventory management for small businesses and established enterprises. Notably, with its impressive Flywheel 2.0 technology, the powerful optimization tool automates advertisement bidding processes and ensures enhanced brand visibility. Teikametrics shines with its unique selling proposition, promising a robust optimization tool with the following key attributes: AI-driven Optimization: Teikametrics leverages artificial intelligence to analyze market trends and customer behavior and subsequently augments businesses' advertisement campaigns, empowering them to make the most of these campaigns. Flywheel 2.0 Technology: The tool’s advanced Flywheel 2.0 technology helps companies make intelligent bids on ad placements, ensuring greater brand awareness and enhanced business sales. Significantly, by automating crucial advertising tasks, it streamlines the ad campaign processes and helps businesses drive higher ROI. Effective Inventory Management and POS Techniques: With Teikametrics, businesses can clearly understand stock requirements and high-performing products. Correspondingly, the forward-looking tool ensures the availability of product stocks in the right amounts at the POS locations, enabling customers to buy what they like and enhancing businesses' POS techniques. Powerful Market Insights: Teikametrics provides businesses with crucial information and insights related to competitors’ actions, market trends, and customer preferences, allowing for informed decision-making and strategy building. 4.4 Quartile Being a robust optimizer of retail media, Quartile utilizes patented AI technology to help e-commerce enterprises fine-tune their digital advertising efforts across prominent platforms. The tool carefully filters through large data sets, automating crucial advertisement tasks to amplify the companies’ returns on investment. Emphasizing the correct ad placement and cross-platform advertisement optimization, the advanced tool further allows enviable precision targeting to businesses. Correspondingly, the key highlights of the innovative marketplace optimization tool include: Automatic, Purpose-Driven Ad Optimization: Leveraging advanced AI technology, Quartile helps users define their optimization goals and streamlines their efforts automatically without requiring manual updates. With the forward-looking tool, businesses can also digitize their ad bidding strategies, streamline ad placements, and search relevant keywords, elevating the efficiency of their ad spend. Privately-owned Machine Learning Innovations: The promising optimization tool for marketplace boasts six proprietary machine learning technologies that companies can leverage to promptly elevate their e-commerce publicity initiatives. Integration of Digital and Retail Media Campaign: Quartile allows businesses to effortlessly combine their digital and retail media campaign optimization within a single platform. This eliminates the need for firms to traverse different platforms separately. It also enables them to augment their brand presence and simplify operations with advanced campaign management tools and analytics from a single interface. Holistic Performance and Attribution Reports: With Quartile, companies can get a comprehensive performance overview comprising relevant insights into sales drivers and attribution reports and make informed decisions or adjust their strategies based on such information. 4.5 Wiser Solutions Wiser Solutions, a leader in commerce execution SaaS products, has an impressive commerce execution suite that facilitates intelligent decision-making and renders a comprehensive view of businesses’ performance. Combining data from offline and online stores, the tool gives companies essential insights, helping them draw augmented sales and profits. Facilitating optimized commerce execution, Wiser Solutions comprises the following notable features: Relevant Pricing Data: By providing actionable pricing data, Wiser Solutions helps businesses enhance their pricing and POS strategies, allowing retailers to promptly evaluate competitor prices, market trends, and other relevant factors, make real-time decisions, and revise product prices to maximize profitability. Comprehensive View of Retail with Multiple Data Sources: Combining data from different sources, such as e-commerce platforms and offline stores, the pioneering tool renders a complete view of the retail environment to businesses, entailing required stock levels, market trends, and customer behavior. In-store Operations Monitoring: Wiser Solutions helps companies effectively carry out core in-store tasks such as pricing products, placing promotional material, and arranging product displays. This helps them render exceptional shopping experiences to customers and ensure consistent brand presence across channels. Smart Decision-making: Wiser’s impressive array of tools comprises advanced analytics that let users leverage real-time insights into competitor strategies, market trends, etc. and make well-informed decisions based on them. The tool, driven by proprietary algorithms, helps businesses drive sales and widen their market shares. Better Product Assortments: With Wiser Solutions, companies can offer customers the most attractive mix of products and ensure that these products don’t run out of stock. Therefore, the tool helps businesses optimize product assortment, driving sales and providing better POS decisions. 4.6 Intentwise Intentwise is an exhaustive marketplace optimization tool that enables retailers to enhance and streamline their advertising endeavors on leading online e-commerce platforms. Focused on elevating pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns, it boasts striking components like analytics cloud, ad optimizer, and so on, increasing return on advertising spend (ROAS) and facilitating successful campaign management. Committed to its endeavor of augmenting advertisement ROI, Intentwise offers various benefits to users: Robust Ad Optimization Engine: Harnessing AI and machine learning algorithms, Intentwise empowers businesses to evaluate their advertisement performance data in real time and further renders actionable suggestions related to keyword optimization, budget allocation, and keyword bidding, which could be implemented either manually or automatically. It also provides competitor insights and AI-powered audits for ad campaigns. Overview Dashboard: With Intentwise, companies get a detailed view of crucial ad metrics, such as conversion rates, total expenditure, impressions and clicks. The comprehensive data allows for better decision-making, time and effort savings, enhanced advertising strategies, and attainment of marketing goals. Flexible Reporting Tools: Intentwise further enables businesses to effortlessly tailor their reports according to their preferences and needs. This customization helps companies undertake detailed analysis, better understand their performance metrics, and make vital decisions. Optimized Ad Spend: To ensure maximum ad spend efficiency, businesses leveraging Intentwise can notably fine-tune their campaign management and bidding strategies based on crucial factors of the retail environment, like market conditions and competitor behavior. Superlative Data Visualization: Users can view and evaluate data with a single click, which showcases a clear distinction between brand and non-brand keywords. Furthermore, the tool converts foreign currency into the user’s local currency, rendering the data comparison easier. The enhanced data visualization importantly improves performance and ensures greater precision in decision-making. 4.7 CommerceIQ Empowering brands to effortlessly succeed in the digital marketplace, CommerceIQ is a comprehensive marketplace optimization tool that enhances all aspects of a brand's retail, such as marketing, sales, and supply chain administration. The tool essentially promises high profitability and business growth through task automation, data analytics, and more. Characterized by relentless, ongoing innovation, CommerceIQ is an all-encompassing tool that benefits retailers through: Progressive Data Evaluation: Using advanced algorithms, CommerceIQ allows businesses to analyze large sets of data related to competitors' actions and consumer behavior, which helps companies make strategically intelligent decisions. AI-Powered Ad Solutions: With CommerceIQ's AI-powered ad solutions, businesses can optimize their advertisement expenditure by real-time bid adjustments, using strong keywords, and allotting advertising funds to top-performing campaigns for improved brand visibility and revenue generation. Task Automation: From product pricing adjustments to advertisement bid management, CommerceIQ automates significant advertising tasks, enabling businesses to carry them out quickly and more efficiently. Enhanced Inventory and Supply Chain Management: By predicting inventory requirements and helping businesses maintain the proper stock levels, Commerce IQ ensures that the demands of customers are invariably met at companies' POS locations. Automated Tools for Effective Sales Management: CommerceIQ's innovative features further elevate businesses' sales operations, protecting brands' reputations from third-party sellers and preventing out-of-stock situations and income loss. 4.8 Feedvisor Feedvisor is an AI-first marketplace optimization tool that strengthens businesses through its comprehensive suite of services. The tool renders actionable insights to brands and sellers, empowering them to optimize their pricing techniques, advertisement campaigns, brand management, and content. Reflecting the significance of data-driven intelligence, Feedvisor helps businesses drive true success through its striking features like: Patented Technology for Dynamic Pricing: The comprehensive tool helps businesses fine-tune their product prices, delivering real-time market data, demand forecasting, and competitive analysis for data-backed decisions. AI-driven Optimized Ads: Feedvisor further elevates sponsored ads and DSP campaigns by helping sellers align these campaigns with product prices and promotions. Correspondingly, the tool allows businesses to leverage the most effective keywords for their ads and modifies bids according to conversion rate trends and traffic. Unmatched Market Intelligence: With Feedvisor, businesses get unparalleled marketing intelligence, as the tool offers comprehensive dashboards and data-backed insights to companies, which allow them to understand market trends, competition, and SKU-level performance. A Splendid Suite of Services: Rendering agency-like business and marketing services to clients, the advanced marketplace optimization tool strengthens businesses through various solutions, including inventory management, counterfeit removal, content listing optimization, reputation management, etc. 4.9 A2X Simplifying ecommerce accounting for businesses, A2X was established in 2014 with impressive integration capabilities and the ultimate aim of helping companies reconcile their revenues correctly. Combining effortlessly with various accounting software, A2X helps businesses gain accurate financial information for well-informed decision-making. The principal features of the A2X marketplace optimization tool include: Automated Accounting Tasks: Ensuring the accurate recording of financial information, A2X streamlines accounting processes by automating tasks such as importing and categorizing transactions. Such automation effectively curtails errors associated with manual data entries, rendering an accurate financial picture to business enterprises. Complete Accessibility: The advanced optimization tool further focuses on rendering high accessibility, ensuring that correct and up-to-date financial information remains accessible to all stakeholders, including bookkeepers, accounting firms, and businesses. Elevated Transparency: The forward-looking A2X tool enhances transparency by delivering accurate financials to stakeholders. This allows businesses to clearly understand their operational effectiveness and make insightful decisions. Scalability: From start-ups to big businesses, A2X addresses the unique needs of companies of varying sizes. The tool's high scalability allows businesses to effortlessly leverage it, as it can grow alongside them to meet changing demands and requirements. 4.10 eDesk With an emphasis on augmenting customer experiences, xSellco’s eDesk offers a vast array of e-commerce tools to brands and retailers, which enable them to increase their response rates and work more efficiently. Facilitating effective communication and intelligent decision-making, the comprehensive tool further offers smart response recommendations to businesses through AI automation. From enhanced customer satisfaction to seamless integrations, the chief elements of eDesk include: Smart Inbox: By consolidating customer queries from different sources, such as social media, marketplaces, and web stores, eDesk ensures unified customer support. It empowers businesses to manage all of their sales and customer messages in a single place for more effective communication. Impressive Integrations: Effortlessly connecting with over 200 platforms like web stores, marketplaces, and social networks, eDesk possesses striking integration capabilities, which allow businesses to gain comprehensive order information. Need-based Message Sorting: Automatically prioritizing messages based on business needs, eDesk ensures prompt response to urgent messages, streamlining workflows and augmenting the overall customer experience. Integrated Analytics: With eDesk, businesses can leverage comprehensive insights on support metrics and customer dealings from various data sources to understand customer demands and trends and enhance customer support services. 5. Final Thoughts Marketplace optimization promises greater visibility and e-commerce excellence to retailers and brands worldwide. Importantly, employing diverse best practices and signals, online marketplace tools empower businesses through ad optimization, workflow streamlining, enhanced selling capabilities, and so on. With processes like location intelligence, digital marketers further endeavor to improve the efficiency of their POS strategies. Yet, one can expect a greater emphasis on the use of such processes along with AI and machine learning in the time to come. Future trends in MPOs will especially witness businesses ensuring enhanced immersive experiences for customers through AR and VR. Furthermore, ethical commerce, sustainability, influencer marketing, predictive analytics, and multi-channel integration would continue to hold great prominence, helping businesses make the most beneficial decisions and thereby unlock true business success.

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5 steps retailers can take to ensure business continuity

Article | April 20, 2020

Every industry has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, with governments implementing various measures in a bid to slow the spread of the virus. This means consumers have had to adapt their behaviour, which in turn is reflected within the economy. As many people are furloughed and many stores have had to implement temporary closures, data shows that people are buying less, which has had a direct impact on the retail industry.

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Productive Edge

Productive Edge is a customer experience, digital strategy and technology services company delivering transformation enterprise solutions for partners around the world.

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Leading Wireless Retail Platform Provider Real Time Technologies Continues Growth and Expansion With Acquisition of Your Ware Software

Real Time Technologies (RT²) | January 24, 2024

Real Time Technologies, Inc (RT²), the largest enterprise front-end software platform serving Fortune 500 companies in the U.S. wireless industry, announced today its acquisition of Your Ware Software, a provider of customized business intelligence, sales, and compensation reporting for the wireless retail postpaid channel. Trusted by tier-one telecom carriers to provide retail activation, point-of-sale (POS), payments, business intelligence, and inventory management solutions, RT²'s acquisition of Your Ware Software adds key capabilities to its burgeoning retail wireless store solutions, enabling further expansion into postpaid channels for customers. The purchase is expected to add access to another 4,000 postpaid locations for RT²'s industry-leading wireless retail platform, setting the company up for another banner year in 2024. "The acquisition of Your Ware significantly expands RT²'s presence in the postpaid retail environment and adds to our long-standing success as the leading enterprise POS and Payments provider in prepaid wireless channels," said Omar Azrag, CEO of RT². "The Your Ware team has similar DNA to RT² and brings a world-class level of service specializing in building and deploying customized solutions for the postpaid channel. We are thrilled to have them part of the RT2 family," says Ali Koumaiha, Founder & CPO of RT². "For 22 years, Your Ware Software has designed POS, inventory management, and commission-tracking software for authorized retailers representing tier-one U.S. telecom carriers. Our team of world-class developers and engineers are excited to join the RT² family and continue to serve our customers with the industry-leading products and services they've come to expect. This deal is a triumph for our employees and our customers," says Chris Jones, CEO of Your Ware Software. Neither party disclosed the terms of the deal at this time, and it will remain confidential. In August of 2022, RT² acquired IAS, formerly Qpay from InComm Payments, specializing in customizable payment and technology solutions and the payment processor of choice for retailers, master agents and wireless carriers. RT² has since transformed and simplified the payment offering with an industry-first service model, much to the delight of their long-term customers. About Real Time Technologies (RT²) RT² offers the most flexible cutting-edge Retail Management Solutions that encompass POS, inventory management, payment services, frontline employee management & engagement, business intelligence, and digital automation tools for the wireless industry. RT² support Fortune 500 companies unify their customer experience and remove pain points across multiple retail touch points. Now serving over 14,000 retail locations across the US, Territories, and Canada. RT² prides itself on fostering a family culture and a dynamic work environment where team members are set up to make meaningful contributions across the organization. Learn more at www.rt2.com.

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POS Solutions

XY Retail Introduces Cutting-Edge Order Management System for Luxury Retailers

XY Retail | January 08, 2024

XY Retail, a leader in innovative retail solutions, today announces the launch of its latest product, an advanced Order Management System (OMS) that comes fully pre-integrated with the XY Point of Sale (POS) and Clienteling solutions. In response to evolving retailer needs, XY Retail has engineered a comprehensive OMS that not only streamlines order processing but also works seamlessly with the existing XY POS and Clienteling systems. This integrated approach marks a significant leap forward in providing retailers with a unified platform to enhance operational efficiency, customer engagement, and overall business performance. The XY Retail OMS offers: End-to-End Integration: The XY OMS is intricately woven into the fabric of the XY POS and Clienteling systems, fostering a holistic retail ecosystem. This end-to-end integration ensures a fluid and synchronized customer experience across all touchpoints. Effortless Order Processing: With a user-friendly interface, the OMS simplifies and accelerates order management, from initiation to fulfillment. Retailers can now seamlessly track and fulfill customer orders with precision. Real-Time Inventory Visibility: Leveraging the synergy with the XY POS, the OMS provides real-time visibility into inventory levels. This empowers retailers to optimize stock, minimize overstock or stockouts, and enhance overall inventory management. Clienteling Enhancement: The integrated OMS elevates the clienteling experience by consolidating customer information from POS transactions and order history. Sales associates can access a comprehensive view of customer interactions, preferences, and purchase history, enabling personalized and targeted engagement. Data-Driven Decision Making: Harnessing the power of interconnected systems, the XY Retail OMS enables data-driven decision-making. Retailers can gain valuable insights into customer behavior, inventory trends, and sales performance, facilitating strategic planning and business growth. "We're excited to introduce our integrated Order Management System, marking a significant step in advancing retail operations,” said Susan Jeffers, CEO of XY Retail. “By seamlessly merging order management with our POS and Clienteling systems, we provide retailers with a powerful tool to navigate the complexities of modern commerce efficiently and strategically. This integration underscores our commitment to delivering innovative solutions, enhancing operational efficiency, and empowering our clients to stay ahead in a dynamic industry." About XY Retail XY Retail is a trailblazer in the world of unified commerce solutions, revolutionizing the retail landscape with cutting-edge technology and innovation. Our microservices based, API-first, cloud-native platform seamlessly and vertically integrates mobile point of sale, order management, clienteling, and omnichannel capabilities, empowering global brands to deliver unparalleled customer experiences. With a commitment to excellence and a vision for the future of retail, XY Retail is at the forefront of shaping the next generation of innovative and dynamic commerce.

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POS Retail

GK Announces GK Engage, a Highly Personalized Loyalty Solution for Any Retail Touch Point Including Mobile Devices and Point-of-Sale

Business Wire | September 28, 2023

GK today announced its latest solution, GK Engage, a modern, comprehensive and AI-powered loyalty program for every omnichannel retail touch point. This solution empowers retailers to create highly contextualized and personalized outreach including messaging, discounts and rewards that improve customer lifetime value and enrich a retailer’s competitive differentiation. GK Engage was announced at GK’s first-ever Retail Innovation Summit for the Americas, which is taking place Sept. 25-26 in Raleigh, North Carolina. Attendees can view GK Engage, alongside other GK solutions, at the newly unveiled GK Customer Experience Center. GK is a world leader in point-of-sale (POS) technology and, as a result, its product team has talked with retailers who wanted more out of their loyalty systems. To fill this gap, GK developed GK Engage, a modern take on loyalty. The solution draws inspiration from two successful GK solutions, MCA, GK’s mobile loyalty program, and T+ Loyalty. These predecessor technologies have serviced more than one billion transactions per year for over six million registered users. Now, GK Engage customers will reap these benefits at scale using one comprehensive platform that works across a diverse range of online and in-store retail touch points. GK Engage provides retailers with real-time, AI-driven, personalized loyalty offers that surprise and delight customers. The complete solution creates loyalty tiers that automatically track all customer interactions and generate relevant campaigns to safeguard long-term retailer relationships and customer lifetime value. GK Engage can be integrated with merchandise master data and customer data to ensure all recommendations, promotions, coupons and more are beneficial to the individual customer, as well as the retailer’s current inventory availability and financial goals. What’s more, GK Engage is already integrated into GK’s OmniPOS solution across all touch points including traditional POS, self-checkout kiosks, mobile, and frictionless store technology like GK GO. “GK Engage was created for any retailer, regardless of where they are in their loyalty journey,” said Michael Jaszczyk, chief digital transformation officer, GK and CEO, GK Americas. “The solution is extremely flexible. For some retailers, GK Engage will serve as a complete solution, while others may integrate the solution into a CRM or an existing customer offer system. I look forward to presenting GK Engage alongside our other innovative solutions at the now unveiled GK Customer Experience Center.” Today and tomorrow, GK customers and partners from across the U.S., Latin America and Canada are gathering at GK’s US headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina to take part in the 2023 GK Retail Innovation Summit. In addition to hearing from renowned retail experts like Greg Buzek, founder and president, IHL Group, attendees can visit GK’s new Customer Experience Center. The center showcases GK technology and allows viewers to envision a modern, efficient and exceptional shopper experience across various key touch points including the point-of-sale, the fuel pump and the e-commerce site. At the Customer Experience Center, prospective retail customers can hear from solution experts who will help them to design the best solution deployment for their end-customers. The technology featured in the center includes GK Engage, GK OmniPOS, self check-out, GK Drive, GK GO, GK AIR (artificial intelligence for retail) and fraud prevention solutions from Fujitsu, which invested in GK as a strategic investor earlier this year. About GK GK breaks down the barriers to unified commerce with its open CLOUD4RETAIL platform and a broad portfolio based on it, like OmniPOS for point of sale, mobile POS, mobile customer engagement and a full range of store/back-office solutions. The company is a recognized leader in omnichannel retail, offering a single, global software platform for all retail formats and touch points. Ten of the Top 50 retailers worldwide rely on GK, and GK is the fastest growing global POS provider in new installations over the last three years. For more information, visit www.gk-software.com.

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POS Retail

Leading Wireless Retail Platform Provider Real Time Technologies Continues Growth and Expansion With Acquisition of Your Ware Software

Real Time Technologies (RT²) | January 24, 2024

Real Time Technologies, Inc (RT²), the largest enterprise front-end software platform serving Fortune 500 companies in the U.S. wireless industry, announced today its acquisition of Your Ware Software, a provider of customized business intelligence, sales, and compensation reporting for the wireless retail postpaid channel. Trusted by tier-one telecom carriers to provide retail activation, point-of-sale (POS), payments, business intelligence, and inventory management solutions, RT²'s acquisition of Your Ware Software adds key capabilities to its burgeoning retail wireless store solutions, enabling further expansion into postpaid channels for customers. The purchase is expected to add access to another 4,000 postpaid locations for RT²'s industry-leading wireless retail platform, setting the company up for another banner year in 2024. "The acquisition of Your Ware significantly expands RT²'s presence in the postpaid retail environment and adds to our long-standing success as the leading enterprise POS and Payments provider in prepaid wireless channels," said Omar Azrag, CEO of RT². "The Your Ware team has similar DNA to RT² and brings a world-class level of service specializing in building and deploying customized solutions for the postpaid channel. We are thrilled to have them part of the RT2 family," says Ali Koumaiha, Founder & CPO of RT². "For 22 years, Your Ware Software has designed POS, inventory management, and commission-tracking software for authorized retailers representing tier-one U.S. telecom carriers. Our team of world-class developers and engineers are excited to join the RT² family and continue to serve our customers with the industry-leading products and services they've come to expect. This deal is a triumph for our employees and our customers," says Chris Jones, CEO of Your Ware Software. Neither party disclosed the terms of the deal at this time, and it will remain confidential. In August of 2022, RT² acquired IAS, formerly Qpay from InComm Payments, specializing in customizable payment and technology solutions and the payment processor of choice for retailers, master agents and wireless carriers. RT² has since transformed and simplified the payment offering with an industry-first service model, much to the delight of their long-term customers. About Real Time Technologies (RT²) RT² offers the most flexible cutting-edge Retail Management Solutions that encompass POS, inventory management, payment services, frontline employee management & engagement, business intelligence, and digital automation tools for the wireless industry. RT² support Fortune 500 companies unify their customer experience and remove pain points across multiple retail touch points. Now serving over 14,000 retail locations across the US, Territories, and Canada. RT² prides itself on fostering a family culture and a dynamic work environment where team members are set up to make meaningful contributions across the organization. Learn more at www.rt2.com.

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POS Solutions

XY Retail Introduces Cutting-Edge Order Management System for Luxury Retailers

XY Retail | January 08, 2024

XY Retail, a leader in innovative retail solutions, today announces the launch of its latest product, an advanced Order Management System (OMS) that comes fully pre-integrated with the XY Point of Sale (POS) and Clienteling solutions. In response to evolving retailer needs, XY Retail has engineered a comprehensive OMS that not only streamlines order processing but also works seamlessly with the existing XY POS and Clienteling systems. This integrated approach marks a significant leap forward in providing retailers with a unified platform to enhance operational efficiency, customer engagement, and overall business performance. The XY Retail OMS offers: End-to-End Integration: The XY OMS is intricately woven into the fabric of the XY POS and Clienteling systems, fostering a holistic retail ecosystem. This end-to-end integration ensures a fluid and synchronized customer experience across all touchpoints. Effortless Order Processing: With a user-friendly interface, the OMS simplifies and accelerates order management, from initiation to fulfillment. Retailers can now seamlessly track and fulfill customer orders with precision. Real-Time Inventory Visibility: Leveraging the synergy with the XY POS, the OMS provides real-time visibility into inventory levels. This empowers retailers to optimize stock, minimize overstock or stockouts, and enhance overall inventory management. Clienteling Enhancement: The integrated OMS elevates the clienteling experience by consolidating customer information from POS transactions and order history. Sales associates can access a comprehensive view of customer interactions, preferences, and purchase history, enabling personalized and targeted engagement. Data-Driven Decision Making: Harnessing the power of interconnected systems, the XY Retail OMS enables data-driven decision-making. Retailers can gain valuable insights into customer behavior, inventory trends, and sales performance, facilitating strategic planning and business growth. "We're excited to introduce our integrated Order Management System, marking a significant step in advancing retail operations,” said Susan Jeffers, CEO of XY Retail. “By seamlessly merging order management with our POS and Clienteling systems, we provide retailers with a powerful tool to navigate the complexities of modern commerce efficiently and strategically. This integration underscores our commitment to delivering innovative solutions, enhancing operational efficiency, and empowering our clients to stay ahead in a dynamic industry." About XY Retail XY Retail is a trailblazer in the world of unified commerce solutions, revolutionizing the retail landscape with cutting-edge technology and innovation. Our microservices based, API-first, cloud-native platform seamlessly and vertically integrates mobile point of sale, order management, clienteling, and omnichannel capabilities, empowering global brands to deliver unparalleled customer experiences. With a commitment to excellence and a vision for the future of retail, XY Retail is at the forefront of shaping the next generation of innovative and dynamic commerce.

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POS Retail

GK Announces GK Engage, a Highly Personalized Loyalty Solution for Any Retail Touch Point Including Mobile Devices and Point-of-Sale

Business Wire | September 28, 2023

GK today announced its latest solution, GK Engage, a modern, comprehensive and AI-powered loyalty program for every omnichannel retail touch point. This solution empowers retailers to create highly contextualized and personalized outreach including messaging, discounts and rewards that improve customer lifetime value and enrich a retailer’s competitive differentiation. GK Engage was announced at GK’s first-ever Retail Innovation Summit for the Americas, which is taking place Sept. 25-26 in Raleigh, North Carolina. Attendees can view GK Engage, alongside other GK solutions, at the newly unveiled GK Customer Experience Center. GK is a world leader in point-of-sale (POS) technology and, as a result, its product team has talked with retailers who wanted more out of their loyalty systems. To fill this gap, GK developed GK Engage, a modern take on loyalty. The solution draws inspiration from two successful GK solutions, MCA, GK’s mobile loyalty program, and T+ Loyalty. These predecessor technologies have serviced more than one billion transactions per year for over six million registered users. Now, GK Engage customers will reap these benefits at scale using one comprehensive platform that works across a diverse range of online and in-store retail touch points. GK Engage provides retailers with real-time, AI-driven, personalized loyalty offers that surprise and delight customers. The complete solution creates loyalty tiers that automatically track all customer interactions and generate relevant campaigns to safeguard long-term retailer relationships and customer lifetime value. GK Engage can be integrated with merchandise master data and customer data to ensure all recommendations, promotions, coupons and more are beneficial to the individual customer, as well as the retailer’s current inventory availability and financial goals. What’s more, GK Engage is already integrated into GK’s OmniPOS solution across all touch points including traditional POS, self-checkout kiosks, mobile, and frictionless store technology like GK GO. “GK Engage was created for any retailer, regardless of where they are in their loyalty journey,” said Michael Jaszczyk, chief digital transformation officer, GK and CEO, GK Americas. “The solution is extremely flexible. For some retailers, GK Engage will serve as a complete solution, while others may integrate the solution into a CRM or an existing customer offer system. I look forward to presenting GK Engage alongside our other innovative solutions at the now unveiled GK Customer Experience Center.” Today and tomorrow, GK customers and partners from across the U.S., Latin America and Canada are gathering at GK’s US headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina to take part in the 2023 GK Retail Innovation Summit. In addition to hearing from renowned retail experts like Greg Buzek, founder and president, IHL Group, attendees can visit GK’s new Customer Experience Center. The center showcases GK technology and allows viewers to envision a modern, efficient and exceptional shopper experience across various key touch points including the point-of-sale, the fuel pump and the e-commerce site. At the Customer Experience Center, prospective retail customers can hear from solution experts who will help them to design the best solution deployment for their end-customers. The technology featured in the center includes GK Engage, GK OmniPOS, self check-out, GK Drive, GK GO, GK AIR (artificial intelligence for retail) and fraud prevention solutions from Fujitsu, which invested in GK as a strategic investor earlier this year. About GK GK breaks down the barriers to unified commerce with its open CLOUD4RETAIL platform and a broad portfolio based on it, like OmniPOS for point of sale, mobile POS, mobile customer engagement and a full range of store/back-office solutions. The company is a recognized leader in omnichannel retail, offering a single, global software platform for all retail formats and touch points. Ten of the Top 50 retailers worldwide rely on GK, and GK is the fastest growing global POS provider in new installations over the last three years. For more information, visit www.gk-software.com.

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