Trends

A survey of 1,050 U.S. adult consumers found that 16 percent of the participants in the research took no action after receiving notice of a data breach affecting their accounts. Information from breached accounts can be used for identity fraud or to make employers vulnerable to cyberattacks, includi...

Research from technology and business solutions firm NTT finds that business leaders are significantly more satisfied with how they have adjusted to new working norms than their employees. The study points to the need for clearer organizational insight into how employees have reevaluated what they n...

Marketing and business communications company R.R. Donnelley & Sons has released a study which reveals that traditional marketing channels, including word of mouth, direct mail, and in-store signage, are largely untapped and underestimated by marketers. The research uncovers significant differen...

Holiday shoppers can expect to see a lot of out-of-stock warnings online this year, but that won't discourage them for opening their wallets to buy gifts for loved ones. According to retail sales watchers, consumers have launched their holiday shopping earlier than ever, spending US$72.4 billion onl...

Sales managers and their managers have had to make peace with the reality that they might not be able to get reps to use technology. But methodology alone or with technology is a more-or-less lost cause. Fortunately, the technology has improved consistently over the last two decades. Even more fortu...

What draws the consumer to a D2C brand over traditional businesses? Two words: customer closeness. That is, the ability for organizations to feel directly connected to the users of their products or services -- understanding their motivations, lifestyles, opinions, and attitudes. Let's first explore...

For those born after the mini-computer era (co-terminus with the original Star Trek), dilithium is the fuel used to power a warp core propulsion system needed for interstellar travel. Dilithium is both naturally occurring and rare, and when it melts, from overuse of the warp core, the starship is ba...

A proposed law barring high-tech companies from favoring their own products over those of their competitors -- a practice called self-preferencing -- would harm consumers, competition and innovation, according to a report released Monday by The Schumpeter Project on Competition Policy at the Informa...

This is not good. A new report commissioned by Replicant tells a story of customers frustrated when service fails or is way too slow. That's not new -- and Replicant is not the only vendor to ring the alarm. For many years Oracle has reminded vendors that one bad service encounter is enough to make ...

Let's start a new meme/hashtag/acronym: Global Information Network, or GIN. I know there's double entendre here, but we're entitled to have a modicum of fun in life, no? I've been writing about the coming of an information utility for a while, but even my visions don't match what we're watching unfo...

Dreamforce saw Salesforce continuing to build out a product offering that in some ways defies description. For the CRM rank and file there were plenty of announcements and enhancements -- and for others some tantalizing views of what may be coming in future releases.

The term "social commerce" is the trend du jour for marketers, yet there's confusion in many circles about what that really means. Some people equate social commerce with capital-I "Influencer" marketing. Others think of social commerce as the process of marketers reaching consumers directly via soc...

A pair of recent studies highlight changing shopper attitudes as the pandemic continues its stranglehold on the supply chain for most industries. Two clear-cut consumer trends have surfaced: online shoppers want more self-service options and an overall more-efficient shopping experience.

Are you looking for a way to reinvent the traditional vendor marketplace? Consider adding composable commerce to your bag of tricks. This marketing approach enables businesses to bring to their brands a distinct method to continuously optimize their customers' experiences.