U.S. shoppers plan to make more purchases from physical stores, but retailers need to improve the in-store experience, according to a recent study by Accenture. Nearly 21 percent of the respondents say they plan on increasing their in-store purchasing, but want stores to offer the same convenience of online shopping.

Retail executives in Europe and North America have experienced positive returns from investing in data analyses that drive store strategies, according to The Economist Intelligent Unit. About half of survey respondents, however, say effectively utilizing that data remains their biggest obstacle.

The official start to the holiday shopping season drew bleak numbers for retailers pushing the big Black Friday buildup.

Analytics can provide retailers with the ultimate insight into their customers. Monitoring in-store movement can yield specific information about consumer behavior, shopping habits and patterns.

Retailers are scaling back on holiday help for the 2013 season.

Amazon.com is planning a large-scale launch of online grocery sales, according to a report from Reuters. It brings with it the first serious online competition for traditional grocery chains.

Irisys will again be supporting our partners at the NRF Annual Convention & EXPO Jan. 14-15 at the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York. Visit Booth #1953 to see the thermal technology difference – and the value thermal people counting and checkout management solutions deliver to retailers:

Retailers can now unobtrusively detect shoppers’ patterns and capture an unprecedented door-to-door view of their behavior patterns thanks to a partnership between Irisys and WirelessWERX, a leader in in-store behavioral analytics. The result is one of the most complete depictions of retail shopping behavior ever provided.

With Black Friday becoming Black Thursday and Friday (and even Black Wednesday – Friday), crowd management is key to surviving the shopping holiday – for both retailers and customers.