Target, Inc.

Boston -- Target’s database breach in December 2013 not only affected the retailer’s fourth quarter comparable store sales, but also contributed to plummeting shopper penetration post-holiday. Kantar Retail ShopperScape data indicates that just 33% of U.S. households reported shopping at Target or SuperTarget during January 2014, the lowest penetration number for Target in the past three years, and a 22% decrease in penetration compared to January 2013.

MasterCard and Visa have teamed up to form a new cross-industry group focused on enhancing payment system security to keep pace with the expectations of consumers, retailers and financial institutions.

News of the group’s formation comes as retailers like Target continue to deal with fallout from the data breaches that first came to light December 2013 and which continue to dominate headlines.

New York -- Target Corp.’s chief information office, Beth Jacob, is resigning, effective Wednesday, as the retailer continues to deal with the fallout from its widespread data breach. Jacob has been in the position since 2008.
 
In a statement released to the Associated Press, Target's president and CEO Gregg Steinhafel said the chain is overhauling its information security and compliance structure.  
    

Ongoing efforts to bolster cyber security at Target will take place under the leadership of an interim chief information officer and several other key positions the company is looking to fill with external candidates.

Earlier this week, Target confirmed that EVP and CIO Beth Jacob has resigned her position and in a statement provided to Retailing Today from Target chairman, president and CEO Gregg Steinhafel made it clear the company is intent on elevating its technology capabilities following last December’s data breach.

Boston -- Walmart continues to extend its lead and again achieves its price leadership position over Target, in Kantar Retail’s semi-annual pricing study. Target’s overall grocery and consumables basket has been more expensive than Walmart’s since the study was performed in January 2011.

With an overall branded basket 3.8% less expensive than Target’s, Walmart extended its lead over its rival from June 2013 when Walmart’s overall basket was only 2% cheaper than Target’s.

Combating fraud at the POS with chip-based payment systems

The data security breaches at Target and Neiman Marcus have put a white-hot fire under the push for the adoption of microchip-based credit-card technology to replace the traditional (and, many would say, backward) U.S. standard of magnetic strip cards. (The latter store unencrypted customer data on magnetic stripes.) Advocates of the chip cards, which store encrypted customer data on embedded microchips, say their use minimize the risk of data breaches at the POS.

Momentum to continue through 2014

By most accounts, 2013 was a banner year for IPOs. According to Renaissance Capital, a total of 222 companies went public in 2013, marking the best year for the IPO market since 2000. As we predicted in a previous article in Chain Store Age, the retail and consumer products industry played a key role in this IPO activity, accounting for 19 offerings and $8.3 billion in proceeds. This marked a notable increase from the number of offerings seen in 2012 (15) and 2011 (12), according to Renaissance Capital.

Ottawa, Canada -- Well-executed dynamic pricing strategies, such as those deployed by Amazon and Overstock, led to higher sales during the 2013 holiday season as opposed to all-season discounting and other strategies. In its “Retail’s 2013 Holiday Winners and Losers” report, pricing intelligence vendor 360pi rated retailers’ overall financial performance for the 2013 fourth quarter on a scale from +5 (above expectations/excellent) to -5 (below expectations/very poor) based on third-party financial analysts’ overall assessments.