Loyalty Marketing

Another company is offering in-app mobile purchase functionality, but this time it’s not a retailer or a technology provider.

U.S. bank Capital One is partnering with MasterCard and Visa to offer contactless mobile payment capability in its Capital One Wallet app. Leveraging the MasterCard Digital Enablement Service (MDES) and Visa Token Service (VTS) platforms, Capital One will use NFC-enabled Android phones to transmit a secure payment token to the point-of-sale.

Online consumer electronics retailer Newegg Inc. is giving mobile consumers what they want.

A comprehensive redesign of Newegg’s mobile shopping experience includes a new mobile site optimized for viewing on mobile devices, and universal apps for Android and iOS devices. Newegg says this is the most comprehensive mobile refresh in its history.

In a relatively short space of time, the retail industry has been turned on its head. Not that long ago, retailers would decide which goods they would stock, how much they would price each item, and which locations would sell which goods. Today, consumers are calling the shots. The smartphone has become like a store in a pocket and consumers use them to quickly find the exact item they want and compare prices to get the best deal. Depending on what is more convenient for them, they can arrange for home delivery or click-and-collect.

Brick-and-mortar analytics provider RetailNext Inc. is expanding into the marketing space.

RetailNext has acquired Pikato, http://www.pikato.com/ a Chicago-based company whose cloud-based software enables personal, one-to-one mobile customer interactions.

Bon-Ton is planning to hire thousands of seasonal workers this holiday season for its 270 Bon-Ton, Bergner's, Boston Store, Carson's, Elder-Beerman, Herberger's and Younkers department stores.

The company says it will hire 13,000 seasonal workers, about as many as last year, and will also hire 500 seasonal employees at its e-commerce fulfillment center and at its distribution centers.

Kohl’s is speeding up its digital overhaul and expanding a new service that aims to attract shoppers who want their purchases to arrive as quickly as possible.

The company announced it will expand its partnership with Deliv to offer shoppers same-day delivery service. Deliv currently powers Kohl's same-day service in San Francisco, the San Francisco Bay Area and Chicago. The service will now expand to Boston, Brooklyn/Queens, Los Angeles, Miami, Northern New Jersey, and Philadelphia in the coming weeks.

Social commerce is finally here.

Various retailers and social media platforms have been experimenting with letting consumers make purchases directly from social networks for some time. But in the past few weeks a flurry of new and expanded social commerce options have been introduced.

Sephora and Ulta are successful retailers in their own right, but Bluemercury founder Barry Beck wants to chart a different growth path for the company Macy’s acquired earlier this year.

When Macy’s announced in February it was buying beauty retailer Bluemercury, a lot of watchers wondered what the little-known niche retailer could offer the nation’s second largest department store chain. The answer to that question lies in something the founder of Bluemercury calls “exceptionalism.”