Marketing Tactics

Staples is injecting more starpower into its latest promotion aimed at supporting education.

The retailer is building on its decades-long support of teachers, students and education by funding 176 local classroom projects in New York City, as part of its recent $10 million pledge to Think It Up, a new national initiative of the Entertainment Industry Foundation that seeks to inaugurate a new movement in support of students, teachers and schools, helping to create a culture of excitement about learning everywhere in America.

Kmart has paid the U.S.

Online retailer ThinkGeek is teaming up with GameStop on a new concept retail store focused entirely on collectibles.

The first store will open in the Florida Mall in Orlando on Sept. 25.

St. Louis -- Build-A-Bear Workshop continues the transformation of its store experience — and business.

The specialty retailer on Tuesday debuted its updated store design at Mall of America, in Bloomington, Minnesota. Part of a company-wide brand refresh, the reformatted location was developed to increase productivity and optimize space while updating the brand’s overall brand look. New elements include:

• Sophisticated new logo, store set-up and color palette;

Evansville, Ind. -- Shoe Carnival Inc. kicked up its heels about its profit in the second quarter, but missed on sales.

Aided by higher merchandise margins and lower advertising expenses, Shoe Carnival reported net earnings of $4.8 million, up 84% from $2.6 million a year earlier. Its results easily beat estimates.

Net sales rose 2% $227.8 million, less than expected, from $222.1 million. Same-store sales rose 0.5%.

Shoe Carnival plans to open 21 new stores and close 15 stores by the end of fiscal 2015.

Washington, D.C. -- Retailers will reveal their 2015 holiday strategies in the weeks ahead and as they do so the National Retail Federation is offering a powerful new resource filled with industry best practices to benchmark against for this year and beyond.

The newly released report, called the 2015 Holiday Planning Playbook, was compiled by top retailers over the course of the past year who served on various NRF councils focused on retail industry disciplines.

Los Angeles – Millennial consumers choose retailers based on different criteria than their elders. A survey of more than 13,000 e-commerce shoppers by Bizrate Insights found that millennials are by far the most price-sensitive with low pricing driving their choice of retailer.

Dallas – 7-Eleven Inc. bases its value proposition on being a convenient way of purchasing food and CPG staples. But for consumers who are too time-strapped to even make a quick visit to their nearest 7-Eleven store, the retailer is offering a new omnichannel delivery service.

7-Eleven and omnichannel delivery provider DoorDash are partnering to provide on-demand delivery from participating 7-Eleven stores in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, with delivery service following in Washington, D.C. and Boston in the coming months.

New York -- Teen fave Nasty Gal is deploying cutting-edge LED technology to show off its on-trend fashions.

The online retailer has opened two brick-and-mortar stores (one in Los Angeles and the other in Santa Monica), and both feature LEDs by Solais Lighting, a division of PowerSecure Lighting and part of PowerSecure International.

Toronto -- Shoppers at Lowe’s stores in Canada will soon be able to turn their purchases into miles toward air travel.

Lowe's Canada and LoyaltyOne Co., owner and operator of the Air Miles Reward Program, announced an agreement to launch the reward program with an anticipated full roll-out to Lowe's stores in Canada beginning on Dec. 1.
Canadian Lowe’s customers will be able to earn Air Miles reward miles at all Canadian Lowe's retail locations and for purchases online at Lowes.ca.