Australian retailers must boost tech

Retailers have been urged to improve their use of IT to survive the economic downturn at a Microsoft Future of Retail event in Sydney, states ARN.

Australian Retailers Association spokesperson, Michael Lonie, said the conditions for retail in Australia were at the toughest point in more than three decades.

“A great number of the CEOs and managing directors of retail organisations have never seen these kinds of conditions before,” Lonie said.

Today's consumer packaged goods retailers and manufacturers must truly understand the shopper to drive success in this very challenging economic and complex competitive environment, says FoxBusiness.

However, discovering shoppers' wants and needs is challenging, as loyalty and transactional shopper data remain among the most untapped assets within today's retail organisations.

To help retailers uncover these critical insights, Information Resources expanded its growth agenda of creating enhanced shopper marketing capabilities with the unveiling of the IRI Shopper Marketing Suite and IRI Loyalty Advantage solutions and supporting services.

TSYS Acquiring Solutions, a payment processor, has made available two new all-in-one point-of-sale (POS) solutions to help small and mid-sized retailers integrate store operations with the point of purchase, reports TMCNet.

Offered as a complete business-in-a-box, the company said that each solution includes quality hardware components and Microsoft software to help retailers manage every aspect of their business.

"Our new all-in-one POS solutions offer small to mid-sized retailers POS capabilities that have previously only been available to larger merchants," said Robert Philbin, president of TSYS Acquiring Solutions.