Retail

The National Retail Federation today told a congressional panel that the retail industry is committed to safeguarding and protecting consumer data and information from highly motivated and sophisticated cybercriminals and hackers.

“Retailers make significant investments every year in order to protect [consumer] data,” NRF VP for retail technologies Tom Litchford testified. “Collectively, retailers spend billions of dollars annually to safeguard data and fight fraud, as well as hundreds of millions annually on [credit card security] compliance.”

Research Triangle Park, N.C. -- ChannelAdvisor Digital Marketing now offers support for Google Merchant Promotions so retailers can advertise special offers within Google product listing ads, and ChannelAdvisor’s new Portfolio Bidder predicts optimal bids to help maximize revenue for online retailers and manufacturers.  

Owning the shopping experience of the future is how Gap chairman and CEO Glenn Murphy described the motivation behind a wide range of omnichannel strategies he and other senior executives shared during an annual meeting with investors.

Murphy and Gap’s top division heads provided an overview of strategic initiatives designed to achieve long-term, profitable growth across its portfolio of brands and also highlighted how the company plans to use technology, innovation and scale as competitive advantages as it looks to deliver a world class omnichannel experience.

New York -- Bang & Olufsen unveiled its first newly redesigned store concept in North America, at the new Madison Avenue location in New York City. The 1,400-sq.-ft. store is designed to evoke a true sensory experience and demonstrate Bang & Olufsen's commitment to providing extraordinary consumer experiences.  

Other locations in New York City will adopt the new design, as well as a handful of additional locations across the United States next fiscal year.

San Francisco — Mobile shopping platform ShopSavvy, has enhanced its AdOns advertising network to support iBeacon integration. The upgrade allows ShopSavvy AdOns partners to run more targeted in-store contextual ads.  

Office Depot has won an Internet Advertising Competition Award (IAC) for “Best Retail Social Media Campaign” from the Web Marketing Association.

The award recognizes Office Depot’s innovative digital campaign supporting back-to-school with Office Depot’s “#Together Against Bullying” collaboration with the band One Direction.

Corpus Christi, Texas -- Susser Holdings opened two new Stripes convenience stores during the first quarter of fiscal 2014 and acquired 47 convenience stores at the end of January 2014 that are currently operating under the Sac-N-Pac brand. The company has acquired one additional convenience store to date in the second quarter, and currently has 17 under construction.

New York – PriceGrabber and StellaService are launching a partnership where PriceGrabber will display StellaService's online retailer ratings and customer service performance data on PriceGrabber.com. In addition, PriceGrabber will act as a distribution partner for StellaService to its network of digital publishers.