Cold Stone Creamery debuts 'social e-gifting' program

July 6, 2010

First Data Corp. and Cold Stone Creamery announced they have teamed up to offer a new gifting application through Facebook. Starting today, loyal Cold Stone…

Mobile barcodes continue march towards mass adoption

by Sharon Goldman — Senior Director, COLLOQUY

Using 2D barcodes as virtual loyalty cards that offer rewards is  a significant investment for large retailers, who must invest in special equipment to read…

Sam's Club now offering small business loans

July 5, 2010

Existing small business owners and entrepreneurs with hopes of starting up continue to seek access to capital in the form of bank loans, yet are still…

Shaping customer experience a critical strategy as retail recovers

'Indistinguishable sameness' can alleviated by a cohesive experience plan.

Top 100: 3. Amazon

What was once a humble online bookstore is now the 800-pound gorilla of the retail world. The company was a pipedream of founder Jeff Bezos at first; within…

Top 100: 1,2.The economy/gas prices

by James Bickers — Editor, Networld Alliance

Call it two different sides of the same lack of coin: The first and second place finishers in our survey of the 2009's movers, shakers, brands and trends are…

Live-tweeting the Online Retailer conference

Follow the latest news from Australia's major online retail event, July 6-9 in Sydney.

What We Can Learn from Bankers

by Dale Furtwengler — President, Furtwengler & Associates, P.C.

The manufacturer's role in shopper-centric category management

Manufacturers and retailers need to work together to get the most benefit from shopper-centric analytics.

Deal-of-the-day pioneer Woot acquired by Amazon

by James Bickers — Editor, Networld Alliance

The iconoclastic online retailer takes an extremely unusual approach in making the announcement.

JCPenney to launch ALDO shop-within-a-shop

June 30, 2010

JCPenney Company Inc. and ALDO USA, Inc. have announced plans for JCPenney to become The ALDO Group's exclusive department store retailer in the United States…

Top 100: 4. Smaller store formats

For many years, the march of retail was pointed in the direction of ever larger things. Stores ballooned in size and selection, and consumer behaviors changed…

F.Y.E. connecting stores, products with 'playful' website

June 29, 2010

F.Y.E., a national retail chain of more than 550 stores offering a wide selection of entertainment products, including CDs, DVDs, video games and more…

New Disney Store is 'immersive, one-of-a-kind retail experience'

The Montebello store is the first of 20 newly designed locations that will open in major markets in 2010.

HSN to launch new mobile shopping site

June 29, 2010

HSN announced today the launch on July 1 of HSN Mobile, a user-friendly, mobile-optimized version of the retailer's top-ten-trafficked e-commerce site hsn.com.

Top 100: 5. Bankruptcies in retail

Circuit City may have been the biggest retail casualty in 2008, but it certainly wasn’t the only one. KB Toys, Linens ‘N Things, Sharper Image, Steve &…

Jeanne Bliss, author of "I Love You More Than My Dog," to give keynote at retail summit

June 29, 2010

An Inconvenient Truth About Bad Customer Service

by Doug Stephens — President, Retail Prophet Consulting

What if you could get the least engaged staff member to actually care about your customers?  What kind of difference would that make to your business? In this…

Fifty cents could have been really special

by Sharon Goldman — Senior Director, COLLOQUY

One of the trickiest parts of building loyalty is making sure that your front-line employees are empowered to make customers feel special. After all, you…

Abercrombie & Fitch: Sex Obviously Doesn't Sell

by Bob Phibbs — CEO, The Retail Doctor

If “sex sells” then why have they lost so many of their customers? Sure their Manhattan store sells $100 million a year to gawker tourists, but how about the…