Coupons/ Rebates/ Pricing

New York City -- Best Buy has become the latest retailer to offer free shipping for select online orders for the holidays.

The chain said the offer, which is good through Dec. 21, is valid on hundreds of thousands of items, including all CD’s, Blu-Ray and DVD movies, as well as gaming software and accessories.

Other retailers have begun offering free shipping programs to entice shoppers to open their wallets this holiday season, including Wal-Mart Stores, J.C. Penney and Target Corp.

Chicago -- Black Friday sales are expected to increase by 3.8% and Cyber Monday sales to grow by 2.5% this holiday season, according to BDO USA’s Retail Compass Survey of CMOs, which polls chief marketing officers at 100 leading U.S. retailers. Black Friday and Cyber Monday expectations are more bullish this year compared with 2009 when both were expected to rise by 1.8%.

Minneapolis  -- Target on Tuesday became the first mass-discount retailer to make the shopkick mobile application available to its shoppers. Users of the app will receive points and other rewards, like instant mobile coupons, just for entering Target. The location-based retail app is available in 242 stores in the Chicago; Dallas; Los Angeles; Miami; Minneapolis; New York City and San Francisco/Silicon Valley markets.

By Dan McKone

We are often asked for the “secret sauce” behind a successful loyalty program and whether we can provide a blueprint that can help retailers optimize their approach. In answer, there is no single generic “ideal program” -- the retailer-customer relationship is far too complex to dumb down in this way. The best program for one retailer may be absolutely the wrong plan-of-attack for another, depending on their starting points in terms of:

1. The depth and breadth of the customer relationship;