Loyalty Marketing

San Luis Obispo, Calif. - Shopatron is unveiling its Shopatron Customer Care Suite, which includes a new set of APIs available within the Shopatron Developer applications, and a new customer care interface. Shopatron launched the two platforms to complement its order management technology, allowing retailers to intelligently manage the customer experience anytime, anywhere, and by any authorized user.

eBay is making updates to its seller performance standards and returns policy designed to promote and safeguard top-level sellers and also ease returns.

Seattle -- Starbucks has announced upcoming enhancements to its mobile app for iPhone, which will allow customers to provide Starbucks employees with a tip directly from the Starbucks App for iPhone. Beginning March 19, customers using Starbucks App for iPhone in the U.S., U.K., and Canada will experience a streamlined design and access to their account and My Starbucks Rewards information.

Orlando, Fla. -- The digital marketing initiative known as “My Weekly Ad” is helping CVS Caremark grow sales and deepen engagement with loyal customers by providing them with personalized versions of the retailer’s weekly ad.

The My Weekly Ad program was launched last fall, and Wednesday morning during a presentation at the IRI Summit CVS Caremark senior VP of merchandising and retail pricing Judy Sansone shared additional details regarding the program.

By Loreal Lynch, VP marketing, Shopatron

The rise of multichannel shopping has forced retailers to begin implementing strategic omni-channel initiatives across their organizations in an effort to satisfy increasing customer demands. These initiatives are ushering in even higher customer service expectations from shoppers who have no patience for disconnected experiences that fail to match the omni-channel marketing promise.

With Amazon’s customer retention rate hovering north of 90%, customer loyalty initiatives are understandably at the top of every retail CMO’s to-do list. Of course, it’s harder these days to find room in consumers’ wallets for another membership card, what with American households belonging to an average of 22 loyalty programs, according to the loyalty research unit Colloquy. But Colloquy also found that each household’s activity was concentrated on fewer than half that number of programs.

Charlotte, N.C. -- Salsarita's Fresh Cantina, a Mexican fast casual concept, has selected Micros Simphony Enterprise Solution for all corporate locations. In conjunction with Simphony POS, Salsarita's is deploying Micros Simphony's Reporting, Labor, Inventory, Loyalty, and Online Ordering modules.

Kmart and Sears are among a group of companies identified as “the least engaging brands of 2014,” in a recently released index of customer loyalty.

"A brand can't do well in today's marketplace if it can't engage consumers, no matter how many ads are run, and no matter how much social networking one does," said Robert Passikoff, founder and president of Brand Keys, a New York-based brand loyalty and emotional engagement research consultancy.