Supermarket/Grocery

Americans have never had greater access to amazing consumer electronics products thanks to eye-popping innovation that is translating to uneven growth and interesting implications for the holiday season, according to the latest sales projections from the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA).

Fairway Market has doubled in size in the past three years and, to help further its growth strategy, it has renewed its Revionics Price Optimization license for three years and expanded the agreement to include the use of Revionics Promotion Optimization.

The partnership between Fairway Market and Revionics began more than two years ago. The company leverages Revionics’ solutions to manage and optimize its rapid growth across all product categories, including key value items (KVIs), the company said.

iBeacon technology, the Apple iOS 7 feature that helps mobile devices track their position relative to stationary beacons by using low-frequency Bluetooth transmissions, is getting quite a bit of attention from retailers. Grabbing their interest is not only that devices can obtain individualized information from beacons, but that beacons can also obtain individualized information from mobile devices.

By Russ Wilson, IBM director, Mobile Innovation Center

Millennials’ comfort with mobile technology, in a world where just about everything can be done with an app,  is driving businesses to provide apps of their own – enabling the purchasing of products and services in a way that is more natural to this tech savvy generation.

Dallas -- X Team International partner Venture Commercial Real Estate has completed leases for two LA Fitness locations in Austin and McKinney, Texas.
 
"As LA Fitness continues to expand its footprint into North and Central Texas, our focus remains on identifying prime locations that will both meet the club's needs and generate increased foot traffic," said Venture Commercial Partner John Zikos.   
    

Chicago -- Mid-America Real Estate Corporation’s Investment Sales team recently brokered the sale of Gateway Square in Hinsdale (Chicago MSA), Illinois. The 39,710-sq.-ft. center was purchased for $10 million, excluding closing costs and adjustments, by Buffalo Grove, Illinois-based C P Management, LLC.
 

Unified Grocers has promoted Terry Bodwin to VP, chief human resources officer. She was previously VP, employee and labor relations.

The appointment is part of a restructure designed to integrate and align all aspects of human resources company-wide. In her new role, Bodwin will report to Christine Neal, SVP, finance and treasurer.

First Data Corporation reported solid June spending growth in a number of sectors in its First Data SpendTrend analysis for May 31, 2014 through June 30, 2014, compared to June 1, 2013 through July 1, 2013.

SpendTrend tracks same-store point-of-sale data by credit, signature debit, PIN debit, EBT, closed-loop prepaid cards and checks from nearly 4 million merchant locations serviced by First Data.

Randolph, N.J. -- Retailers are behind Amazon in analytics maturity, according to a new research report from EKN Research. Eighty percent of retailers say they are behind Amazon in analytics maturity, and 71% of retailers perform either basic analytics reporting or none at all – revealing retailers’ inability to take advantage of the data that is available to them.
 

Minneapolis -- Free standing Insert (FSI) coupon activity increased 3.4% t based on coupons dropped during the first six months of 2014 versus the year ago period, according to Marx, a Kantar Media solution. Coupons dropped within non-food categories increased 8.2% to represent 65% of the 158 billion FSI coupons distributed during this period.