Loyalty Marketing

Philadelphia -- Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust announced Tuesday that it has launched a free interactive application, available for its 40 shopping malls around the country.

Initially designed for Apple’s iPhone, the app will soon be available for the Android and Blackberry, according to PREIT.

The warehouse club channel remains one of the hottest segments in retail as evidenced by the solid third-quarter results Costco reported earlier this week on the heels of the equally solid first-quarter results Sam’s Club reported last week.

Although the company’s operate on different fiscal years, the quarterly periods are comparable with only one week separating Costco’s May 8 third-quarter end date from Sam’s Club’s April 30 end date.

Dallas — Alliance Data Systems Corp., a provider of loyalty and marketing solutions derived from transaction-rich data, announced it has signed a long-term extension agreement with Victoria’s Secret, a subsidiary of Limited Brands, Inc., to provide private-label credit card services.

terms of the extension, Alliance Data will continue to provide end-to-end private-label credit card services for the Victoria’s Secret credit card from account acquisition to customer service.

WASHINGTON — Target announced that it will provide new libraries for 42 schools in the United States as part of the 2011 Target School Library Makeover program.

Pittsburgh — General Nutrition Centers, has added PayPal's Mobile Express Checkout to its mobile site. The integration was made exclusively by mobile and social commerce provider, Branding Brand, without any involvement from third-party service providers, and makes GNC one of the first to implement this feature on its mobile site.

ISSAQUAH, Wash. — A larger-than-expected inventory charge may have dinged Costco’s third quarter earnings per share, but strong membership upgrade numbers and a dozen fourth quarter openings bode well for the company’s future performance.

Target CFO Doug Scovanner moderated analysts’ second-quarter and full-year earnings expectations slightly, although it can at times be difficult to tell given the language used to communicate in the Wall Street guidance game.

With the dust settled from Target’s first-quarter earnings announcement last week, it has become quite apparent the company would not be faring well were it not for the beneficial effects of the PFresh remodeling program and last fall’s introduction of 5% REDcard Rewards.