Retailer Campaigns

Walmart’s policy of prohibiting employees from accepting the smallest of gratuities has been in place for a long time and for good reason. Veterans of the company will tell you that early on it was a key driver of success because there was a time when the retail industry was rife with merchants who tended to make buying decisions that were in their best interest as opposed to those of customers.

HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill. — Sears Holdings continues its efforts to reach more Hispanic consumers with the announcement that its Kmart brand has launched a Spanish-language miniseries on YouTube.

ST. LOUIS — Save-A-Lot, the hard-discount, limited-assortment grocery chain owned by Supervalu, on Tuesday dispatched two "brand ambassadors" on the Save-A-Lot Fuel Your Family Road Trip. The "Road Scholars" will make pitstops at Save-A-Lot locations in 10 cities between Aug. 7 and Aug. 28 to help raise awareness that Save-A-Lot can be the go-to source for affordable, high-quality food.

TAMPA, Fla.— Winn-Dixie Stores announced that beginning Tuesday, guests using the new Winn-Dixie Customer Reward Card (CRC) at any of the grocer’s 95 stores in the Tampa/St. Petersburg, Tallahassee, Gainesville, Fla., Albany and Columbus, Ga. areas, can earn significant fuel discounts at participating Shell stations. The savings are part of Winn-Dixie’s fuelperks! Rewards Program.

Overall, there was an 8 % decline in the number of pages per market across the retailer set, and a 4% decline in number of inserts. Pages being down can be attributed to a steep decline in Kohl’s and Sears' number of pages per market, while the decline in number of inserts was due to Home Depot and Staples decreasing their drops.

Home Depot and Safeway adopted a similar strategy, reducing the number inserts per market in July 2011 compared with last year, while increasing the number of pages per market. 

NEW YORK — Macy's announced that it is bringing back its Backstage Pass campaign with even more engaging video content that delivers trend and helpful advice, straight from Macy’s stable of star designers and industry experts. In addition to essential tips, customers will have the chance to instantly win daily shopping sprees worth up to $500, wherever a Macy’s Backstage Pass appears, whether in-store, print or online.

It seems like everybody wants to get in the outlet business these days. In particular, there are a growing number of “traditional mall” developers that seem to be seriously considering -- or in some cases, actively pursuing -- the development of outlet centers or the conversion of existing traditional mall assets into outlets. On the heels of Gap’s announcement to close 200 of their full-price stores by 2013 and concentrate on expanding their Gap outlets and Banana Republic Factory Stores, I understand why developers are seriously thinking about outlet centers.

The nation’s retailers can hope back-to-school shoppers haven’t been paying attention to the steady dose of dire economic news facing the nation the past week, but that’s pretty unlikely considering this is the information age.