Marketing Tactics

LOS ANGELES -- Ralphs announced that it is continuing its partnership begun last year with Shell to offer participating customers more rewards at the pump. According to the company, Southern Calif.-area customers will now earn double points on qualifying purchases at Ralphs when they buy fuel at participating Shell locations.    

The 5% REDcard Rewards program Target launched last fall has contributed to sales results and served as a game changer on the pricing front with Walmart. Savvy shoppers are increasingly realizing the additional 5% savings they receive by using their REDcard can result in the price of a basket of food and consumables at Target slipping below the price of a comparable basket at Walmart.

BENTONVILLE, Ark. — Sam's Club is offering skin health screenings to customers on May 14 as part of Skin Cancer Awareness Month.

 Sam's Club shoppers will offer skin assessments, which will be conducted by U.S. Wellness, to both members and non-members. U.S. Wellness will conduct DermaScan skin tests, which use Type A ultraviolet light to show sun damage that is invisible to the naked human eye. The retailer added that it will offer free DermaScan skin tests to the first 100 participants who sign up in each club.

Target was among the major U.S. companies who were quick to step up after the wave of tornadoes brought unprecedented death and destruction to communities throughout the Southeast. Target donated $200,000 in cash to the American Red Cross to support tornado relief efforts and made an additional donation valued at more than $75,000 that included product and relief kits, which contained hygiene and food items for distribution in the hardest-hit areas.

The most recent pricing survey from the equity research team at Credit Suisse shows that Target is either 3.1% more expensive or 1.9% less expensive than Walmart. The firm compared prices at stores in the Dallas and Chicago markets, as it does every month, and during March discovered the gap between the two competitors narrowed considerably.

“Target’s price gap with Walmart tightened from 4.2% in February to 3.1%,” according to the firm. “Target’s basket price decreased sequentially by 0.8% compared with Walmart’s 0.3% increase.”

This Mother’s Day is shaping up to be a battle between Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook, with the popular e-readers featured on the cover of circulars from Target and Walmart that dropped this past weekend.

Customers paying with their Lowe’s Consumer Credit Card receive an immediate discount of 5% on in-stock and special order purchases bought in stores or online at lowes.com, Lowe's said.

Customers with single-receipt purchases of $299 or more can choose between the 5% discount or special financing currently advertised.

New York City -- Target Corp. was due in court in Canada on Monday in an attempt to win exclusive right to use its name in Canada, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Target is asking the court to impose a preliminary injunction against Canadian retailer Isaac Benitah and his company, Fairweather, which owns 15 stores across Canada called Target Apparel and has a logo similar to that of Target Corp, the report said.

New York City -- Target has joined with American Express to offer a co-branded prepaid card that customers can reload and use at any store that accepts Amex cards, according to the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal.

Target said in an e-mailed statement that it is selling the cards in a test at 100 stores in four cities: Chicago, Denver, Miami and Washington, D.C., the report said. The company said there is no projected end date.

New York City -- Hudson’s Bay Co. will test its HBC’s Home Outfitters concept in the United States, opening two stores in New Jersey in late summer, The Globe and Mail reported.

If successful, the company will further expand the home-goods concept, which will be called Lord & Taylor Home in the United States. (Hudson’s Bay and Lord & Taylor are owned by Purchase, N.Y.-based NRDC Equity Partners.)