Retail Pro and Wishpond form strategic partnership to help merchants drive in-store sales

This article is brought to you by Retail Technology Review: Retail Pro and Wishpond form strategic partnership to help merchants drive in-store sales.

Some 94% of shopping happens in stores, but 90% of shoppers make their buying decision based on online research. This shift in consumer behavior makes it essential for retailers to surface their product inventory online to local shoppers in all the places they look. Wishpond recently announced the launch of RetailConnect--a new shopping platform, which enables retailers to easily import & publish product data for greater online visibility.

Today, Wishpond & Retail Pro announced a strategic partnership, which comprises:

A business partnership where Wishpond marketing services will be offered to all Retail Pro customers; and

A technical integration between Retail Pro Point of Sale systems and Wishpond's RetailConnect platform which enables retailers to push real time product information from their retail location to Wishpond and keep it automatically synchronised; and

Retail Pro Business Partners will be able to offer Wishpond services and start generating new revenue streams on a recurring basis

Wishpond's CEO, Ali Tajsekandar was quoted as saying: "Retail Pro customers will now be able to reach more local shoppers and significantly increase in-store sales without the cost and complexity that makes product inventory publishing very challenging for small retailers. This is a huge win for local retailers, who are the backbone of the North American economy."

"In a highly competitive market, having an easy and effective way to market online to local consumers is critical for all of our merchants," said Kerry Lemos, Retail Pro CEO. "By partnering with Wishpond, we're giving merchants an instant online marketing tool they can use with their POS system to instantly promote their products and deals to local shoppers. This is absolutely a game changer for merchants."

How it Works
Merchants make a request by contacting sales@wishpond.com
They will automatically receive instructions, a download link and instructions on how to install the Wishpond RetailConnect plug-in. Once the plug-in is installed, the retailers Point of Sale system will automatically "push" product inventory data to Wishpond and keep it synchronized with no additional effort. Retailers can sign in to the Wishpond merchant centre to manage their products and publish their product inventory to Facebook (as a Facebook Storefront), push it to Google Product Search or to mobile applications instantly.

Through this strategic partnership, Retail Pro is creating strong differentiation from its competitors and embracing the new ways retailers need to market their products online. Tajsekandar added: "Retail Pro is one of the fastest growing and most progressive Point of Sale companies in the world and we are excited about this strategic alliance. It's a win four times over: for retailers, local shoppers, Retail Pro and Wishpond."