Rakuten

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. — Belk has engaged the services of ChannelAdvisor, a global e-commerce platform provider, for comparison shopping strategy and data feed management. Belk is utilizing ChannelAdvisor’s Comparison Shopping and Flex Feed solutions to skillfully create, optimize and distribute Belk’s product data feeds to multiple shopping engines such as Shopzilla, Shopping.com, Nextag and PriceGrabber as well as to a variety of other commerce partners.

ALISO VIEJO, Calif. — Buy.com has announced that Bernard Luthi, a 15-year veteran of e-commerce, technology and consumer electronics, has joined the company as chief marketing officer. Previously, Luthi was VP marketing, web management and customer service at Newegg.com.

In his new role, Luthi will lead Buy.com’s marketing initiatives, including web site experience, advertising, BuyTV, public relations and promotions. In addition, he will work closely with Buy.com parent company Rakuten on overall corporate branding. 

MINNEAPOLIS — Best Buy has joined the likes of Amazon and eBay with the launch of its own third-party shopping destination. The move comes as Best Buy looks to grow its online business as it struggles to maintain leadership of a saturated consumer electronics market.

According to Best Buy, Best Buy Marketplace will increase the company's online product assortment by one third in time for holiday shopping.

Costco isn’t a retailer that comes to mind for most people when it comes to back-to-school shopping, so it was peculiar to see the company’s name atop a list of the best one-stop shopping destinations.

Nothing against Costco, they sell some awesome stuff, but the company can’t be confused with such true one-stop shopping destinations as Target, Walmart or even office supply stores. Costco topped the list due to a flawed survey conducted by STELLAService, a company that provides customer service ratings for online retailers. 

Retailers who release monthly sales next Thursday will offer fresh insight and hard numbers on back-to-school shoppers’ early season spending behavior and that’s a good thing because so far opinions offered by forecasters are all over the place.

Back in early July, Customer Growth Partners said seasonal sales would grow by 6.2% to $467 billion, the most since 2006, despite economic headwinds.