Merchant Warehouse acquires gift, loyalty provider Opticard

March 26, 2014

Merchant Warehouse, a provider of payment technologies, has announced the acquisition of Opticard, a provider of gift and loyalty programs for organizations…

Duane Reade to push out weather-related prompts, coupons to New Yorkers

March 21, 2014

Duane Reade, New York City's largest drugstore chain, part of the Walgreens family of companies, and Poncho, a personalized weather-forecasting service that…

Meijer adds features to its mPerks digital program

March 21, 2014

Meijer has announced added features for its mPerks program that allows customers to store digital receipts from purchases in a single place and details exactly…

Roundy's Supermarkets installs behavioral insight tech from Symphony

March 17, 2014

Technology provider Symphony EYC announced that Wisconsin-based Roundy's Supermarkets Inc. has selected Symphony EYC Customer Insights behavioral insights…

RetailMeNot updates coupon app

March 13, 2014

Digital coupon distributor RetailMeNot has announced an update of its free RetailMeNot coupons app for iPhone and Android users.

Big data: Personalizing the customer experience in real time

Delivering a personalized customer experience is taking on new dimensions to address tectonic shifts in buying patterns.

If our data is currency, who is the bank?

by Doug Stephens — President, Retail Prophet Consulting

If our data is currency, who's the bank? It's a question that every brand and retailer should be giving serious thought to. Those who don't may soon find…

South American retailer opts for retail analytics platform

March 11, 2014

Symphony EYC has announced that Medellin, Colombia-based Almacenes Flamingo, one of the largest retail chains in South America, has selected the Symphony EYC…

How and why price discounts impact customer experience

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

What are the odds that discounting your price is going to lead to a positive customer experience? It'll be interesting to see whether your reactions to the…

Tipping points in an economy of one

by Bryan Pearson — President, LoyaltyOne

From one-to-one to peer-to-peer, the relationship between consumer and brand has been tipping over the past few years, and the consumer is the one gaining…

CashStar launches new version of digital gifting platform

March 3, 2014

Digital gifting company CashStar has announced the release of CashStar 5. Delivered as an SaaS solution, the company said its platform delivers ROI for…

Choosing the right special effects for your brand's story

by Andrew Sharpe — Retail Strategist, BRANDSPANK

Last month I was in New York City for the National Retail Federation's (NRF) annual "Retail's BIG Show" conference. For those who have never attended this…

Loyalty limelight: Vail Resorts' smart passes lead to peak engagement

by Bryan Pearson — President, LoyaltyOne

In a nutshell: In 2007, Vail Resorts began embedding RFID chips into its passes so it could more quickly and easily check tickets at airlifts. The single- and…

National Gift Card launches eCard API

February 19, 2014

National Gift Card Corp. announced today that it has launched its first proprietary application programming interface to provide customers with electronic gift…

Survey: UK shoppers are now 'habitual deal seekers'

February 18, 2014

Retail service provider parago has released its second U.K. shopper study, "Let's Make a Deal." According to the company, the results reveal that regardless of…

Sears offering curbside pick-up

February 12, 2014

Sears has announced that it is offering customers the ability to place mobile orders for products and receive them at the store within five minutes, without…

CardLinx standard takes aim at return fraud

February 11, 2014

The CardLinx Association, a new association that facilitates the interoperability and growth of card-linked offers (CLOs), and Deem, a cloud commerce company…

Kroger acquires digital coupon and promotions firm

February 11, 2014

The Kroger Co. today announced it has purchased the assets of YOU Technology Brand Services Inc., a Silicon Valley-based provider of digital coupons and…

Gas customers evolve in how they shop for price

February 4, 2014

Price remains the dominant reason why consumers buy gas at a particular location, but how consumers shop for that price is shifting, according to the results…

Mindshare Technologies announces text analytics tool for customer comments, reviews

January 31, 2014

Mindshare Technologies, a provider of cloud-based Voice of the Customer (VoC) technologies, has announced the general availability of Comment Poster, a new…