Retail and Hospitality

Hello, everyone! My name is Anne McClelland, and I am the new director for Cisco’s retail and hospitality sales team in the U.S. I’m excited to have the chance to write for Cisco’s retail blog program, and you’ll be hearing from me regularly sharing some insights, musings, and speculations on trends…

If every click made by a shopper on an online store can be considered valuable information, surely every step taken by a shopper in a physical store is also a similar wealth of data. While clearly this is valuable input that many stores would like to have, the means to collect and process it is not…

The lines between offline and online experiences are blurring. Customers no longer go online, they are online 24/7, and that includes inside your stores. In fact according to recent Google research, 89% of smartphone users leverage their smartphones while shopping in stores. And close to 70% of thos…

The key to retail today is customer understanding —where each customer stands on his or her personal shopping journey, whether in-store or out. Retailers must “know” each shopper as never before. And they must offer the kinds of contextual, personally relevant experiences that will optimize their me…

Retailers once had a pretty clear idea of who shopped where and how they did it. After all, there were not that many options available for shoppers. Consumers would see an ad or peruse a catalog, and then visit the physical store with the hope that their preferred item was in stock. These days, reta…

One customer can be multiple shoppers, and retailers need real-time insight into every shopping journey. Be sure to take a look at Cisco VP Joseph Bradley’s new blog as he shares three retail Internet of Everything attributes that deliver hyper-relevance and build a dynamic infrastructure: htt…

Be sure to check out Blair Christie’s new blog on winning consumer trust! She discusses how a new Cisco study shows that shoppers are looking for efficiency, engagement, and savings from the store. For example: 77 percent of respondents said they would be “somewhat” or “very likely” to use a…

“Mike” may be an avid golfer who enjoys meandering through the sporting goods section of his local retailer. But he would be a very different shopper the morning his plumbing fails and threatens to flood his basement. In such a context, efficiency rules, and it is critical for the retailer to speed…

One of the hottest topics at NRF this week has been delivery systems. Recent research by Cisco Consulting has found that delivery is one of the top concerns of not only retailers, but of shoppers as well. I now have personal experience of this: Just before the holidays, my husband and I ran an exper…