In our Weekly Shop this week, we look at Christmas planning, retail tech trends, how Google judges quality content and two case studies from Selfridges and Liberty.

Small and medium-sized retailers to start Christmas promotions earlier this year

A study by Royal Mail has found that the UK’s small and medium sized online retailers are planning to start Christmas promotions this week – which is one week later than last year. The study also found that price promotion was the most common tactic set to be deployed in the battle to win sales this Christmas followed by free delivery and returns.

Retail tech trends for the 2014 holiday season

While on the topic of Christmas,  Econsultancy have rounded up a selection of retail tech trends for the 2014 holiday season to help you end 2014 strong.

New study: this year’s Black Friday set to be the busiest yet

Another new study this week has suggested that this year’s Black Friday on 28 November could be the busiest and most successful yet. The study found that more retailers are looking to invest in the discount day than last year and shoppers are actively anticipating the day to start their Christmas shopping.

How Selfridges uses digital to create extraordinary multichannel experiences

According to Selfridges, a multichannel retailer dealing in the luxury end of the market, they have to offer customers’ connected and extraordinary experiences’ across its digital and physical properties. In light of this, our next article this week summarises some of the tactics Selfridges uses as part of its multichannel strategy.

Liberty launches Instagram-based loyalty app

Luxury London department store, Liberty, is the first retailer to trial an iPhone app that will reward customers in the store with the use of iBeacons. As customers enter Liberty, iBeacons will trigger the app – named Tapestry – to unlock vouchers to be used in store. The app will use the users Instagram data to curate the vouchers available to the a customer and create a bespoke reward system.

How does Google judge quality content?

In our last article this week, Econsultancy identify five key factors that you should focus on if you want to produce content that search engines will recognise as high quality.

Thanks for reading!