M&S and Samsung have unveiled a new Smart TV app that they say will show how we’ll shop in the future. The new app can’t be used to buy goods but it does give access to content in areas including the latest fashion and beauty advice as well as tips on buying.

In our latest preview of one of our major events of the year, Internet Retailing Expo (IRX 2012), we take a look at our conference agenda. The Mobile and Social Commerce Conference will be held on March 22, the second day of the free-to-attend two-day event and is for all retailers who want to use, or extend their use of, mobile or social commerce in their businesses.

Despite the ‘doom and gloom’ surrounding UK retail, the British are still keen shoppers. But today rather than pacing the high street, they’re buying online instead, according to the Basekit.com study which also found women spend more time shopping, but men spend more money.

Shoppers keen to net bargains in the ecommerce sales will be logging on to ecommerce sites this Christmas Day, predicts the IMRG. It says they will spend more than £180m on Christmas Day, but that total will almost double on Boxing Day.

Over the course of this Christmas, UK shoppers will spend an estimated £2bn after they’ve been drinking, according to research from shopping comparison site Kelkoo. It says 4% of consumers have only realised they made a purchase when it arrived in the post.

UK consumers are now more likely to buy CDs, books and holidays online, a KPMG study has found. But when it comes to luxury goods they’d rather buy in store. Meanwhile the growing importance of social commerce in the purchase process has been highlighted by a Reevoo study.

The UK’s internet consumers are only slightly more confident about their ability to spend than they were three months ago, new data from the British Retail Consortium shows – but 86% believe the country is in recession and 76% fear for jobs.

Men shop differently from women, and retailers will benefit from recognising that fact, according to new research from Shoppercentric. The report found more than half of men browse online every couple of days.

With the Christmas shopping season approaching, it seems that 13% of us will be buying all our presents online, though almost 90% of us are likely to use both the internet and high street to make our purchases, according to HSBC research. Meanwhile, Kantar Media Compete says we’ll be looking to rein in our spending, and will be buying early.

Some 67% of online shoppers researched products in a store but then bought online, in search of a better price, a new study from Kantar Media Compete found. Its Online Shopper Intelligence report found 69% made the store their first port of call to find out about products.

Social commerce and what it means for retailers was a central theme for the keynote speakers at our annual conference, Internet Retailing 2011, being held today. Speakers in the session hailed from retailers including eBay, HMV and Facebook.

In our latest preview of our annual conference, Internet Retailing 2011, we speak to keynote speaker Mark Hodgkinson, soon to take on the role of HMV’s new marketing and ecommerce director, about what he’s learned in more than a decade of working with the internet.

In our latest preview of our annual conference, Internet Retailing 2011, we spoke to Richard Evans, director, marketing, EMEA at email marketing specialist Silverpop about his new concept of ‘mocial’ marketing, and what this might mean for retailers.

In the latest preview of our annual conference, Internet Retailing 2011, Miriam Lahage of eBay, keynote speaker at the event, says retailers must rethink their idea of what ‘the store’ is in order to adapt to the way that customers are shopping.

Consumers want to shop when suits them – and now is the time to recognise that by opening later, and closing later, on the high street. That’s the call from the Association of Town Centre Management which has urged town centre shops to consider changing their hours.

Calling customer service is frustrating consumers held at the mercy of queues, automated responses and premium rate numbers, new Econsultancy research into multichannel service has found. But the report found retailers emerged relatively well, with 47% saying they offered the best level of service.

Shoppers are compiling shopping lists online before venturing to the high street, in order to make sure they spend no more than they can afford, according to Asda research. The retailer’s research also found that household income is down on last year, knocking on to a difficult retail market, as predicted by accountants RSM Tenon.

British shoppers who get poor service in a shop are highly likely to complain – and many will do so online. Not only are UK consumers the most likely in Europe to complain, one in five will air their negative views on a reviews website and 14% through social media.

In this week’s preview of our annual conference, Internet Retailing 2011, Nick Gassman of ba.com, the British Airways website, tells us how the company uses analytics to better understand its customers.

Ecommerce sales at John Lewis grew by more than 20% this week, though sales across the group fell by more than 3%. It continues a first-half momentum that saw online sales rise by 27% in the first half of the year.