Sales & Marketing

Photo: ColorTek - Studio C, St. Louis

Staples is condensing its 30 years of business knowledge into a new performance tracking mobile app to help customers grow their business.

Staples launched a new mobile app branded as Quick Wins to offer business-specific ideas, metrics and community support in one easy-to-access place. The retailer said its research showed that nearly three-fourths of small businesses want assistance getting their business metrics on track, yet 41% are not sure what business metrics they should focus on in order to ensure their success.

St. Petersburg, Fla. -- The Sembler Company’s latest listing is nearly 3,250 sq. ft. of ground-floor retail space in The Salvador, new luxury condominiums, located in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida. The 74-unit, green-certified condo tower is located just 300 ft. from the University of South Florida, and walking distance from The Dali Museum, The Mahaffey Theater and the Central Avenue arts/entertainment district among other attractions.

How will retailers fare in 2016? Very well, according to experienced market watchers.

“We expect core retail sales to grow 5.3% in 2016,” says Scott Hoyt, senior director of consumer economics for Moody’s Analytics, a research firm based in West Chester, Pennsylvania. (Core retail sales exclude volatile revenues from auto sales and gas stations.)

That is notably faster than the 4.2% rate anticipated when 2015 sales are finally tallied. The 2015 experience was, again, slightly better than that the 3.9% growth of 2014.

If you’re going to invest in the emerging area of mobile retail apps, you might as well build it around the latest consumer trends.

Ankeny, Iowa-based convenience chain Casey’s General Stores Inc., which operates more than 1,900 stores in 14 Midwestern states, is releasing a new app that includes functionality for the growing consumer preference for prepared meals. The app allows Casey’s customers to order pizza, made-to-order sub sandwiches and appetizers.

Sidecar, an early pioneer in the ridesharing and delivery app space, shut down as of Dec. 31.

Photo: Pete Van Helden has been named chief executive of Stater Bros. Markets

The New Year is here, and it’s time to make annual resolutions. When it comes to their IT activities, retailers should resolve to make improvements in the following three areas.

Innovation
The days of IT being responsible for “keeping the lights on” are long over. Enterprise systems are still required to perform basic but crucial tasks such as finance and HR, but any retailer looking to compete in 2016 needs to look far past the boundaries of simple task automation.