Marketing Tactics

WHITE PLAINS — Burlington Coat Factory is joining the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Light the Night campaign for the 12th consecutive year. The retailer will be collecting donations at checkout to help support blood cancer research. 

Burlington Coat Factory also plans to enlist its more than 28,000 employees nationwide to participate in Light the Night walks across the country to commemorate lives touched by cancer and raise funds to help fight blood cancers.

Business and friendship are generally considered incompatible. It’s hard to take the dispassionate, profits-first mindset that traditionally governs business transactions with a person you think of as a friend. However, in this burgeoning age of social media and social commerce, retailers need to make friends with their customers to maximize engagement, loyalty and profits.

New York -- Australian swimwear brand Seafolly will open its first U.S. freestanding store in October, Women’s Wear Daily reported.

The company will open a 1,800-sq.-ft. location in Fashion Island mall, in Newport Beach, Calif. Seafolly has been selling its goods at select stores in the United States for about five years. It also does an exclusive line for Nordstrom, the report said.

BALTIMORE — Under Armour is going back to its roots — grassroots football, that is — in its latest global marketing campaign. Things kick off with a 60-second spot called, "Ready for August," which will serve as the centerpiece of phase two of the I Will campaign.

The commercial will be broadcast July 15 on Fox during the 2013 MLB All-Star Game Home Run Derby, and is viewable on YouTube now.

The Limited helped changed the way women shop for apparel 50 years ago and this month it is commemorating the occasion with digitally inspired promotions the company’s founders could never have imagined.

West Bridgewater, Mass. -- Shaw’s and Star Market have ended their loyalty card program. The program offered shoppers sale prices on selected items.
 
In line with the decision to drop the loyalty card program, Shaw’s and Star Market announced they are lowering prices on thousands of items across all of its 169 locations.

FAIRFAX, Va. — ThinkGeek.com is taking the merchandise it offers on its e-commerce site to Booth #5541 at the San Diego Comic-Con, from July 17-21.

CITY OF COMMERCE, Calif. — Extreme value retailer 99 Cents Only Stores is getting ready to help one of its customers celebrate her 99th birthday as only it can. 

At 7 a.m. Friday, July 19, Mildred "Millie" Fox of Murrieta, Calif., is going to receive a 99-second shopping spree experience and free birthday cake at her local store. It will be 99 Cents Only Stores’ very first 99th birthday celebration.