Coupons/ Rebates/ Pricing

Discount online shopping site Overstock.com has lowered prices on books and is offering a 15% bonus to loyalty members in what CEO Patrick Byrne is calling a price war with Amazon.

"We will analyze the results and cost benefits of this price war against Amazon and decide how long to continue the promotion. Right now it's scheduled to last through Cyber Monday," said Byrne.

New data from JLL’s 2014 Holiday Sentiment Report, which includes feedback from 800 largely national or global retailers in JLL-managed shopping centers across the United States, suggests retailers are optimistic about store performance, but are fighting the “survival of the fittest” match.  

New York --Forrester Research said Monday it expects U.S. online sales to reach $89 billion in November and December. That's up 13%, or about $10 billion, over a year ago. But Forrester analyst Sucharita Mulpuru noted that the expected growth is not as high as it could be due to a few unique constraints, including fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and capacity constraints in the already constrained carrier networks.

Hoffman Estates, Ill. -- Sears Holiding Company joined the growing list of retailers with extended shopping hours on Thanksgiving and Black Friday.   Sears and Kmart stores will open on Thanksgiving Day, with Sears opening at its earliest time ever: 6 p.m, two hours earlier than last year. Kmart will open its doors for 42 hours straight, from 6 a.m. on Thanksgiving to midnight on Black Friday.

San Jose, Calif. -- Verifone and MasterCard are providing Las Vegas taxi cab passengers with card-linked offers in a pilot program running from from Nov. 2-6. Targeted offers from merchants, in this case The Hard Rock Café on the Las Vegas strip, the Bali Hai and Royal Links golf courses and Dream Racing at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, are displayed to taxi passengers on VNET–Taxi TV screens integrated with Verifone payment terminals.   

By Jeremy Geiger, Retailigence   The headline is bold, but yes, 2014 is the year of hyperlocal mobile advertising, and there are three very important trends converging today to make this happen.   The first is smartphone proliferation; according to eMarketer, smartphone users worldwide will total nearly 2 billion in 2014.   

A powerful alliance formed by News American Marketing, Acosta Sales & Marketing and dozens of leading brands and retailers have stepped up again this veterans day to remind Americans to Believe in Heroes.

Believe in Heroes is an innovative cause marketing campaign created by Acosta Sales & Marketing in 2010 to generate awareness of the Wounded Warrior Project and raise funds for the critical services the group provides to veterans. News America, publisher of the SmartSource Magazine coupon insert, signed on to the Believe in Heroes program in 2011.

Amazon made it even easier to find holiday gifts for technology lovers this year.   The company launched its annual Electronics Holiday Gift Guide (www.amazon.com/giftguide), a curated list of more than 500 top tech gifts of the season which features 3 times more deals than last year, with 10 deals on electronics items offered every day.

Customers and Shop Your Way members can shop Black Friday deals at most Sears stores starting as early as 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving. Sears’ subsidiary Kmart, continuing a 23-year tradition as a destination for early-bird shopping, will open for 42 hours straight, from 6 a.m. on Thanksgiving to midnight on Black Friday.

Seattle –- Amazon.com will start offering daily Black Friday deals on Saturday, Nov. 1. Amazon will also start offering two Deals of the Day every day through Monday, Dec. 22.