Loyalty Marketing

SAN FRANCISCO — Performance Marketing Brands, which owns and operates cash-back shopping sites that include Ebates.com, has appointed David Oppenheimer as the company’s new CFO. 

Most recently, Oppenheimer was CFO at ServiceSource, a global recurring revenue management and technology company. Oppenheimer will manage finance, accounting, HR, facilities and various operational and administrative functions for all PMB properties, including Ebates.com, Ebates Canada, FatWallet, AnyCoupons, One Receipt and Pushpins. 

Dallas – Alliance Data Systems Corporation will provide private label credit card services for the US brands of Zale’s and acquire the existing card portfolio at a future date. In addition to providing private label credit card services for each Zale brand in the U.S., Alliance Data will provide turnkey credit marketing services to all Zale brands, including omni-channel and mobile services and technologies.

MADISON, Wis. — The Oscar Mayer Wienermobiles, the country’s longest-running mobile marketing campaign, are trying out a different type of mobile space with the brand’s launch of its first-ever Wienermobile Run program.

Oscar Mayer is leveraging social media to engage existing and would-be fans. First, the brand is encouraging people to visit WienermobileRun.com, where they can join their favorite Wienermobile team. Those who do will receive a team bumper sticker while supplies last, and help their team earn points. 

Women’s apparel brand and retailer Lilly Pulitzer is turning to supply chain commerce solution provider Manhattan Associates to revamp its omnichannel retail capabilities so it can address its growing brick-and-mortar and e-commerce businesses. 

CINCINNATI and MATTHEWS, N.C. — Kroger, already one of the world’s largest retailers, is about to get even larger. The company plans to purchase all outstanding shares of Harris Teeter Supermarkets for $49.38 per share in cash. 

The merger agreement not only allows Kroger to expand its brands portfolio but also allows it to expand its market with a complementary base of 212 stores, of which 147 have pharmacies, in Southeastern and mid-Atlantic markets and in Washington, D.C.

WHITE PLAINS — Burlington Coat Factory is joining the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Light the Night campaign for the 12th consecutive year. The retailer will be collecting donations at checkout to help support blood cancer research. 

Burlington Coat Factory also plans to enlist its more than 28,000 employees nationwide to participate in Light the Night walks across the country to commemorate lives touched by cancer and raise funds to help fight blood cancers.

Business and friendship are generally considered incompatible. It’s hard to take the dispassionate, profits-first mindset that traditionally governs business transactions with a person you think of as a friend. However, in this burgeoning age of social media and social commerce, retailers need to make friends with their customers to maximize engagement, loyalty and profits.

West Bridgewater, Mass. -- Shaw’s and Star Market have ended their loyalty card program. The program offered shoppers sale prices on selected items.
 
In line with the decision to drop the loyalty card program, Shaw’s and Star Market announced they are lowering prices on thousands of items across all of its 169 locations.