Marketing Tactics

UPS is trying to capitalize on this year’s shorter holiday shopping season, which is six days fewer than last year’s, by touting the shipping services its UPS Store offers.

The UPS Store has a network of 4,300 employees at locally owned and operated centers ready to pack and ship everything from fragile glass ornaments to surfboards and golf clubs. The store also offers customers a Pack and Ship Guarantee.

Consumers who prefer packing their own gifts themselves can obviously still ship them via the UPS Store, but are asked to do the following:

Chicago -- Shoppers visited more stores and spent more money across the days of Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday (Nov. 28 and 29) than they did last year, according to ShopperTrak.

When compared to Thanksgiving and Black Friday last year, brick-and-mortar shopper traffic increased 2.8%, to more than 1.07 billion store visits. Retail sales also increased by 2.3%, as shoppers spent an estimated total of $12.3 billion across the two days.

CommonKindness president and co-founder Sarah Schloemer has been named the winner of a Silver Stevie Award in the Young Entrepreneur of the Year category in the 10th annual Stevie Awards for Women in Business.

The Stevie Awards for Women in Business are the world’s top honors for female entrepreneurs, executives, employees and the organizations they run. All individuals and organizations worldwide are eligible to submit nominations: public and private, for-profit and nonprofit, large and small. The 2013 awards received entries from 18 nations and territories.

The 80 million strong Gen Y is a retail force to be reckoned with

A generational shift is afoot that’s about to upend the retail landscape.

SuperSaturday raises IT awareness and funds for kids in need

Of the many reasons retail IT professionals attend the annual National Retail Federation (NRF) Convention & Expo each January in New York City, keeping current with all the latest industry topics and trends is surely at the top. Each year, RetailROI independently offers SuperSaturday, a one-day event held the Saturday before the official Sunday kickoff to the NRF Convention.

Retail executives and suppliers meet at annual networking event

Business partnering was the top priority at Chain Store Age’s 11th annual Executive SPECS, held in November at the Boca Raton Resort & Club, Boca Raton, Fla. 

Designed as a high-level networking forum for retailers and suppliers in store planning, design, construction and facilities management, Executive SPECS combines dynamic keynote speakers with face-to-face “information exchange” meetings with suppliers, sponsor presentations and informal discussions.

Winston-Salem, N.C. -- Krispy Kreme has signed a development agreement with Dulce Restaurants, LLC, to develop 10 new Krispy Kreme shops in Houston over the next five years.

Dulce Restaurants, LLC, a subsidiary of Dallas-based Sun Holdings, LLC, currently operates three Krispy Kreme locations in Dallas, and has plans to open an additional 15 Dallas shops through 2018.

New York -- Overall spending over Black Friday weekend was expected to hit $57.4 billion, according to the National Retail Federation, which is down 2.8% from last year’s $59.1 billion. It was the first spending decline on a Black Friday weekend since 2009. But there was some good news for retailers: Online sales soared over the holiday weekend.

The NRF estimated that 141 million Americans shopped during the four-day weekend, up 1.2% from a year ago.