For small retailers with a limited marketing budget raising brand awareness can be hard.

Social media can help, but what really works is creating brand advocates. By giving customers a compelling reason to talk about you on Twitter you can start conversations and increase exposure.

Japanese Department Store May Want to Look Up the Word ‘Fucking’.

If only we could have sat in on the meeting where the marketing team for this Osaka department store came up with the idea for their “Fuckin’ Sale,” spotted early this month by a reader of Jake Adelstein’s Japan Subculture blog.

The new children’s concept, in John Lewis’ Oxford Street flagship, takes the shopper through the heart of each category, from fashion, nursery and travel, to footwear, toys and crafts. The total experience is improved, including layout, lighting, merchandising, digital integration and customer service.

I can't wait to see how they leverage version 2.   We've all seen the scantily clad girls handing out free samples of some random product as

When big retailers get it wrong there's often no running from the online consequences.   Best Buy was considered by many technology retailers to be revolutionary

Anybody with an e-mail box this time of year is in the middle of a storm — a 20 percent-off discount lands, only to be topped by another for 30 percent off, then 40 percent, half-price. That’s not to mention the free shipping offers piling up like snowdrifts as we head into the last full weekend of Christmas shopping.

Well now that Christmas is almost upon us, we thought it was a good time to check out all the festive windows from retailers around the world, from big to boutique.

Argos has opened pop up gift shops in London train stations Paddington and Waterloo this week.
 

The temporary stores, which aim to appeal to time-poor London commuters, offer customers the opportunity to order goods for collection the same day.

The pop up shops, which Argos said are styled as giant gift boxes, offer 75 Christmas gifts. Customers scan a unique QR code relating to a particular product. Their item is then checked and reserved using Argos’ mobile site, meaning they can collect it later that day or at another convenient time from an Argos store of their choice.

  The Abercrombie & Fitch owned lingerie, beach and nightwear brand, Gilly Hicks, Sydney has this week featured on a live screen in the retailers new

Barneys opened its new interactive floor cafe, genes @ CO-OP, where shoppers can grab a meal while checking out what’s new and of note at Barneys on a digitized tabletop. The restaurant has room for just 30 diners, each of whom are spread across a communal table with a glass top under which there are 30 computer screens allowing diners to digitally order off the menu and scroll through Barneys’ digital content.