Marketing Tactics

Bentonville, Ark. – Wal-Mart is working with Autoinsurance.com to offer customers in Arkanas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas an auto insurance comparison service. AutoInsurance.com provides customers with multiple quotes from national insurance carriers including Progressive, Esurance, Safeco, The General and others within minutes.

Wal-Mart plans to offer the service nationwide in the coming months. The launch of this service stems from a successful pilot that took place in Pennsylvania during 2013.

Sport Chalet is turning 55 this year and to mark its anniversary, the retailer is taking a look at some of the biggest fitness trends and milestones from the past five decades, and forecasting trends consumers can expect in the decade to come.

In 1959, Norbert and Irene Olberz opened an intimate ski shop in La Canada Flintridge, Calif. Now there are 51 stores in four states, featuring the industry's top brands across a variety of sports and fitness activities.  

Foot Locker Foundation, the charitable arm of Foot Locker, announced the 20 recipients of the Foot Locker Scholar Athletes Program. Each student will receive $20,000 in college scholarships, totaling $400,000.

The scholarship program, funded by the Foot Locker Foundation and administered by DoSomething.org, honors students who demonstrate academic excellence and exemplify strong leadership skills in sports and within their communities. To date, the program has awarded $1.2 million to help deserving high school student athletes pay for school.

Irvine, Calif. – PriceSpider has expanded availability of its Where-to-Buy (WTB) services. Previously available in the consumer electronics space, the PriceSpider WTB service is now also available and in use in the home appliance, toy, automotive parts, sporting goods and consumer packaged goods markets.

Chicago -- Consumer confidence rose significantly in the first quarter of 2014, according to a MarketPulse survey from IRI. All age groups are reporting a more positive outlook — especially Millennials. A distressed consumer segment since the economic downturn began, this age group is showing the greatest rise in confidence.

New York -- Uniqlo debuted a new flagship with the opening of its fifth location in Paris, in the city’s Marais area.

Located in a 19th century building that once housed a foundry, the three-level, 8,800-sq.-ft. store combines such historic details as a 115-ft- red-brick chimney with a modern layout and high-tech accents, including video screens and LED displays.

It was designed by Tokyo architects Wonderwall, a longtime collaborator with Uniqlo.

The Container Store’s net income soared by about 800% year-over-year during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2013, to $18.34 million from $2.09 million. A substantial drop in effective tax rate, as well as lower net interest expense, helped drive the impressive growth in net income.

Net sales slipped from $217.02 million to $216.82 million, while same-store sales climbed 1.4%. The company cited severe weather as reducing sales.

Mountain View, Calif. - Airtight Networks, which provides in-store WiFi analytics such as how long customers stay and shop, how often they come in and marketing campaign effectiveness, is partnering with Frontera Consulting to package social media and retail intelligence capabilities with the Airtight platform. The new solution offers WiFi-based brand lifecycle management.