Loyalty Marketing

New York -- Sears and its Shop Your Way loyalty program are prepared to make a splash in New York next week by playing a major role in the city’s Food Network New York City Wine & Food Festival presented by Food & Wine.

New York’s premier culinary event will be held Oct. 18 to Oct. 20 and Sears and Shop Your Way are expanding their presence this year and plan to showcase stylish and affordable lines of patio furniture, Kenmore grills and indoor and outdoor entertainment with Sears designer and TV personality Ty Pennington.

Sales trends at J.C. Penney are improving and year end liquidity is now expected to exceed $2 billion following a recent stock offering, the company said Tuesday morning during an uncharacteristic mid-quarter update on its operating performance.

Overstock.com has opened a distribution center in Jonestown, Pa., just in time for the holiday rush. The new operation means faster fulfillment of orders. Shipping products from the Jonestown facility will provide orders to customers from Maine to Florida within two days of order shipment.

Chicago -- Dollar stores are not just for lower- and middle-income shoppers. In fact, half (50%) of respondents from the highest-income households ($150k+) say that they are shopping at dollar stores the same amount this year compared to last year, with 10%  say they are doing so more than last year, according to new research from Mintel. Only 32% of respondents from the highest-income households claim not to shop at dollar stores.

Global ecommerce and payment processing leader First Data Corporation and Microsoft to simplify retailers ability to offer and redeem local deal offers.

The companies said that First Data’s OfferWise solution has been integrated with Microsoft’s Bing Offers Card-Linked which consolidates local deals from a number of deal providers. OfferWise is an open platform that enables retailers to electronically attach offers to any consumer payment card or mobile wallet to allow streamlined and automatic redemption of the offer at the point of sale.

New York -- Shoppers in the United States intend to spend an average of $646 on gifts this holiday season, representing an 11% increase over the $582 they planned to spend, on average, in 2012, according to Accenture’s annual holiday shopping survey. The forecast uptick is more optimistic than other holiday surveys released to date.

Best Buy Canada is now offering Gibson’s guitars and basses from Gibson USA and Epiphone, both online and in select stores across Canada. This launch adds to the ever-growing selection of more than 300 musical instruments available online at bestbuy.ca.

Atlanta -- First Data Corp announced that the First Data OfferWise  solution has been integrated with Microsoft’s Bing Offers Card-Linked, which consolidates local deals from a number of deal providers. OfferWise is an open platform that enables retailers to electronically attach offers to any consumer payment card or mobile wallet to allow streamlined and automatic redemption of the offer at the point of sale (POS).