Neiman Marcus generates more than a quarter of revenue online so far this year - In its IPO filing, the luxury retailer says it plans to invest more in mobile. "We are able to associate substantially all browsing behavior on our digital platforms with unique individuals," the company states in the filing. "By aggregating this data and employing advanced analytics, we are able to generate a single view of these customers' engagement with our brands. We utilize this data to enhance the interactions with our customers when they are in our stores and personalize the presentation of merchandise to our customers when they shop online." Neiman Marcus uses Bloomreach, Oracle, Rapleaf, RichRelevance, WibiData and in-house services for personalization, according to Top500Guide.com.

Women's contemporary jewelry and accessory retailer Charming Charlie has met consumer demand with a timely technology upgrade that supports both its immediate needs and its international expansion plans.

Survey: Amping up tech spending - Internet Retailer exclusive survey results find that in the next year most online retailers will spend more on technology, with many focusing on applications that will help them acquire customers and please mobile shoppers

Retail is becoming an increasingly hot market for hosted cloud computing providers. Some of those providers, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the Aliyun cloud division of Alibaba, are operated by retailers.

Over a 13-month period beginning in late 2013, Charming Charlie implemented several Oracle solutions including its Merchandising System, Retail Trade Management, Price Management, Invoice Match and Store Inventory Management.

Over a 13-month period beginning in late 2013, Charming Charlie implemented several Oracle solutions including its Merchandising System, Retail Trade Management, Price Management, Invoice Match and Store Inventory Management.

Women's contemporary jewelry and accessory retailer Charming Charlie has selected Oracle Retail Merchandising solutions to support both its immediate business needs and its international expansion plans.

Women's contemporary jewelry and accessory retailer Charming Charlie has selected Oracle Retail Merchandising solutions to support both its immediate business needs and its international expansion plans.

When consumer demand for the latest trends surges, fashion retailers must move quickly to engage with shoppers and ensure they have the right product mix on the shelves.

When consumer demand for the latest trends surges, fashion retailers must move quickly to engage with shoppers and ensure they have the right product mix on the shelves.

Hosted cloud computing is becoming an increasingly hot market. Amazon Web Services (AWS), which recently launched a major Indian initiative in Alibaba's backyard, maintains a dominant position. Oracle has released a slew of more than 24 new additions to the Oracle Cloud Platform. Also Google is entering a new partnership that will base the next generation of JDA Software Group of cloud-based omnichannel and supply chain solutions on the public Google Cloud Platform.

"...We're really marrying up purchase behavior within the stores, purchase behavior in the digital channels and other external information to put together more relevant assortments. It's a great partnership between our merchants and our e-commerce business to bring it to life."

The dawn of cloud-based retail as a service (RaaS) platforms, such as Oracle's new suite of Oracle Retail cloud services, enables retailers to use the cloud to manage everything from inventory and e-commerce to customer engagement and order fulfillment.

With the addition of Oracle Retail Insights and Oracle Retail Science, Oracle is now a "one-stop cloud shop"; with 17 different software-as-a-service (SaaS) cloud offerings available for large and mid-size retailers, explained David Dorf, Senior Director of Solutions Management in an exclusive interview with Retail TouchPoints. ..."The SaaS offerings are much more affordable for mid-tier retailers, in part because they are paying for what they use," Dorf noted. "We are now able to avail cloud science to smaller retailers."

Oracle is focusing squarely on retail agility with the latest additions to its comprehensive set of retail cloud solutions. ..."Retailers can react to the market a lot faster," said David Dorf, senior director of product strategy at Oracle Retail, during a phone briefing with Chain Store Age. "Retailers do not have to focus on mundane IT tasks, but the retail business itself. They can also obtain access to more features and functions faster, with automatic upgrades in the cloud."

Toys said it will be using Oracle ATG e-commerce software to build its new Web platform. The decision "tells me they're looking to increase the percentage of business they do online," said Paula Rosenblum,managing partner at RSR Research, a research and consulting firm that specializes in retail technology. GSI, and now eBay Enterprises, typically don't handle operations for the largest retailers, she said. Rosenblum said she is surprised Toys hadn't moved in this direction already. "Given that they've been under attack by Amazon and WalMart both, you would think they would have done this sooner," she said.

Oracle is enabling retailers to fulfill orders in the cloud with two new product releases on the Oracle Supply Chain Management Cloud platform.

The retail chain will build a new online retail platform using software from Oracle after years of outsourcing web sales to GSI Commerce, now eBay Enterprise. It's the latest in a series of retail chains taking control of their own e-commerce destiny.

On the back end, there is another large implementation - the company's core trading platform will be the Oracle Retail Suite, which will include sub-products Retail Merchandising System, Retail Sales Audit and RPM for database monitoring. "[With the Oracle systems] it's all about controls, stability, joining up - the usual things. We've got lots of heritage systems. So the idea is to get a back end that's solid, secure, reliable and less complex than other technologies we currently have," says Haywood.

...The new tool, built for the Oracle Public Cloud, is part of Oracle's Customer Experience (CX) applications portfolio. "It's rare that a retailer just wants to discuss commerce by itself," Ian Davis, senior director of product management for Oracle Commerce, told Chain Store Age. "They want to discuss social media, marketing, customer service and sales." Oracle Commerce Cloud's SaaS infrastructure allows online businesses to launch responsive storefronts across desktop and mobile devices. Pre-integrated core commerce features include search / navigation, recommendations, promotions, reporting, payments, design templates and SEO. A unified experience management console enables catalog, content, design and merchandising management. Responsive design and HTML5 user interfaces let users build additional functionality or develop integrations that connect Commerce Cloud with other systems while also allowing consumption for third-party development efforts. "We use an API-first development approach," said Davis. "Exposing APIs makes the solution easy to use." Davis also commented on Commerce Cloud's capabilities to seamlessly fit into retailers' business-to-business efforts, as well as their business-to-consumer markets....

Oracle Commerce Cloud is designed to offer online merchants "simplicity, quick time-to-market and shorter implementation cycles," said Ian Davis, Senior Director of Product Management for Oracle Corporation, in an interview with Retail TouchPoints.

Amazon just obtained a new competitor for its Amazon Web Services cloud hosting and development platform. Oracle is going head-to-head with Amazon with a slew of more than 24 new additions to the Oracle Cloud Platform. Oracle's new integrated cloud services include infrastructure, platform and software delivered as a service. Specific cloud-based services include hosted Exadata-based production databases, archive storage, Big Data, enterprise mobility, and application integration. Oracle says it offers the same products, with 100% compatibility, in the cloud and on premises, which means that companies can move to and from the cloud without changing applications. Furthermore, workloads can be moved to the cloud instantly. "Oracle is growing really fast," said Larry Ellison, CTO of Oracle, in public remarks. "Oracle is the only company on the planet that can deliver a complete, integrated, standards-based suite of services at every layer of the cloud. Those technology advantages enable us to be much more cost-effective than our competitors. Our new Archive Storage service goes head-to-head with Amazon Glacier and it's one-tenth their price."

Almost two years after an intensive e-commerce upgrade, Ulta Beauty is making steady progress toward its goal of reaching 10% of total sales via the Internet - a major milestone in the cosmetics segment.