Retail

Dillard’s CEO William T. Dillard II voiced disappointment in the retailer’s gross margin performance despite what he called a profitable fourth quarter. Although comparable sales grew 2%, the retailer said lower-than-anticipated sales necessitated heavy markdowns.

Single Touch Systems, a technology-based mobile media solutions provider, has named Adam Meshekow as head of national retail sales.

Meshekow will be responsible for the company's direct sales and marketing efforts and will work with management to help architect plans for future client engagement and product development and deployment.

PayPal and Samsung have collaborated to make Samsung Galaxy S5 users the first to be able to log in and shop at any merchant that accepts PayPal on mobile and in-stores using their fingerprint.

The new biometric feature means Galaxy S5 users will no longer need to remember passwords or login details. PayPal is touting itself as the first global payments company to support Samsung’s mobile fingerprint authentication technology.

CVS has joined CommonWell Health Alliance, a health information technology vendor-led interoperability effort.

The company joins founding members Allscripts, Athenahealth, Cerner, CPSI, Greenway, McKesson and Sunquest and service provider RelayHealth in the Alliance's work.
 

Ebates, the owner and operator of the world's most rewarding shopping programs, has appointed Yen Lee as SVP of corporate development.

Target has been ramping up digital efforts for a few years now, but its Digital Vendor Marketing (DVM) team is putting the retailer on the mobile games map.

Target sees mobile games as an opportunity to directly reach customers and showcase the brands and vendors on its store shelves.

“We’re really focused on creating great games for guests that are simple, yet challenging enough to make you want to play again and again,” says Dawn Block, who oversees the DVM team as a VP of Target.com and mobile.

“Ongoing investigation.” “Forensics and law enforcement continue to investigate.” For now, it is a bit too early to write the “Lessons Learned” piece about the Target/Neiman Marcus/Michaels data breach incident. But there are a few things that were known before these latest payment card/database breaches occurred and should be put into context in light of what we are currently investigating.

Overstock.com has been named the 2013 Compuware Best of the Web Gold award winner in the U.S. Retail Product Order Transaction category and the Bronze award winner in the U.S. Retail Last Mile category.

The annual Compuware Best of the Web awards honors the top performing mobile and websites. The awards measure home page and key user transactions based on average response time, availability and consistency of websites across five U.S. industries (i.e. retail, banking, brokerage, insurance and travel) based on analysis throughout 2013.