Coupons/ Rebates/ Pricing

PriceGrabber, a leading distributed e-commerce platform and shopping site, conducted its Winter Holiday Shopping Survey and found that 69% of consumers plan to shop at the same retailers at which they shopped last year.

Promotion and pricing intelligence leader Market Track has acquired Competitrack to bolster its digital and electronic media capabilities and provide richer insights to retailers and consumer goods companies.
 
Chicago-based Market Track provides clients with retail promotion, real-time e-commerce and pricing intelligence solutions in North America while New York-based Competitrack is a leading provider of directly placed product and image data across 22 media channels including TV, print, radio, online display, online video, social and mobile advertising.

Toys ‘R’ Us plans to launch an online version of its “The Great Big Toys"R"Us Wish Finder” holiday catalog Nov. 2. The retailer is also launching The Toys"R"Us Wish List Wizard, a free iOS and Android app that turns parents’ smartphones into a scanner and lets kids scan items they want in-store for automatic inclusion on a digital wish list.

Atlanta -- Among the affluent households, the average expenditure for December holiday gifts in 2013 is estimated to be $2,175 down 2.8% from 2012, according to a new survey of the wealthiest 10% of U.S. households by the American Affluence Research Center. However, affluent households spent in 2012 almost 7% more than they had anticipated in the 2012 survey, supporting the premise that people often tend to spend more for gifts than they had planned.
 

Minneapolis – Target Corp. is making a big online push for the holidays, including expanding its in-store pick-up program for products ordered online to all of its U.S. stores by Nov. 1 (the service is now available in about half of the chain’s locations). And for the first time, Target will promote the concept of Cyber Week, with an ad campaign Dec. 1 through Dec. 3 that focuses on Cyber Week deals including Cyber Monday.

Free standing inserts remain a popular promotional vehicle, but weakness in other aspects of the Valassis business model have CEO Rob Mason vowing major changes after a third quarter sales decline.

Target is getting ready for the holidays with a big multichannel push that includes expanding its in-store pick-up program for products ordered online to all of its U.S. stores by Nov. 1 — a service that is now available in about half of the chain’s locations.

Target will run an ad campaign Dec. 1 through Dec. 3 that promotes deals during Cyber Monday and the rest of Cyber week.

Palo Alto, Calif. -- PunchTab, an omni-channel loyalty and engagement platform, announced that Arby’s Restaurant Group, Cosi and Bareburger have adopted PunchTab’s technology, and are benefitting by offering rewards to customers across multiple channels. In fact, research shows, customers are 2.5 times more likely to buy when engaged on multiple channels.

Toronto -- Shoppers Drug Mart is teaming up with Beyond the Rack, the online shopping club, to provide Shoppers Optimum members with exclusive deals on designer fashions and accessories.

Shoppers Optimum members are invited to join a new subscription-based retail website that offers exclusive savings and rewards on designer fashions and accessories. Those who register can receive special weekly product offers from Beyond the Rack while collecting 10 Optimum points on every dollar spent.

Austin, Texas - The current state of the economy will drive 41% of consumers to look for ways to save money on their holiday shopping this year, seeking out bargains and coupons. According to the new annual holiday shopping and coupon usage survey from Offers.com, about half of people (51%) make a holiday gift list, and 62% set a budget for their holiday gift shopping.

Other holiday-related findings from the survey include: