Marketing Tactics

Walmart kicked off its back-to-school promotional effort the way it does every seasonal selling initiative – with a big emphasis on low prices – but added a stronger digital component this year.

The retailer sought to bring a bit of Black Friday and Cyber Monday magic to its back-to-school efforts with a series of price cuts and limited duration offerings designed to generate sales and drive traffic to its stores and Web site.

Meijer is generating traffic to its stores with weekly promotions and price drops on more than 300 of back-to-school items, which it plans to continue offering into September. In the past few weeks alone, customer traffic has consistently doubled, according to the retailer.

Youngstown, Ohio — AVI Foodsystems and Cafaro Co. have teamed to bring Bob Evans Farms into the mall food court environment.

Warren, Ohio-based AVI collaborated with Bob Evans Farms to introduce Bob Evans Express, which scales down the traditional Bob Evans restaurant into a concept that works in venues such as workplace cafes, airports, travel plazas and universities.

New York -- Parents and their children in grades K-12 will spend a combined $543 on back-to-school items, and double that, at $1,223, on college spending. According to new survey data from Deloitte, parents alone expect to spend 13% less than in 2013.

Downers Grove, Ill. -- FTD Companies Inc. will acquire the Provide Commerce floral and gifting business from Liberty Interactive Corp. for $430 million in cash and stock. Both companies have annual revenues of more than $600 million.

Electronics company Vizio has kicked off a back-to-school contest for college students that will furnish a winner with electronics and $2,000 toward tuition and books.

The company is encouraging students to upload videos of themselves explaining a story of determination to Vizio’s website through Aug. 19.

BitPay, a payment service provider (PSP) specializing in e-commerce, B2B and enterprise solutions for the bitcoin digital currency, has unveiled a new pricing plan that offers basic payment processing free, forever.

The company is hoping to leverage the pricing plan to woo businesses into accepting bitcoin for goods and services.

Global fitness brand Reebok is expanding its retail footprint in New York with a new 3,070-sq.-ft. FitHub in Union Square.

Reebok first unveiled the new retail store concept at a pilot location in New York’s 5th Ave., in 2012, and has since expanded throughout the city with locations in the Upper East Side; Paramus, N.J.; and White Plains, N.Y.

Leading women’s specialty apparel retailer Lane Bryant is kicking off football season with an exclusive NFL Capsule Collection.

The brand’s NFL Capsule Collection will feature several styles, including tank tops, scoop and V-neck tee shirts, and the teams include the Chicago Bears, Denver Broncos, Green Bay Packers, New England Patriots, New Orleans Saints, Philadelphia Eagles, Pittsburgh Steelers and San Francisco 49ers.

New York - A majority of parents plan to spend more on their children's back-to-school shopping this year, driven by rising costs or necessity rather than greater spending power. According the Accenture Back-to-School Shopping Survey, which polled 500 U.S. parents of children entering kindergarten through college, nearly all (89%) plan to do most of their back-to-school shopping in a physical store, though many will still use online to browse and search, or "webrooming."