Sales & Marketing

Walmart EVP of merchandise operations Scott Huff is scheduled to address members of the Bentonville Bella Vista Chamber of Commerce at an upcoming event.

When asked which Cyber Monday offers they will take advantage of, 70% of consumers said deals. In addition, a new survey from FatWallet.com shows that 42% said coupons, 31% said cash back, 51% said storewide discounts and 68% said free shipping.  

Lisle, Ill. -- Glory Global Solutions found that the overwhelming majority of U.S. consumers using self-service machines (88%) have felt frustrated by the technology, this according to the company’s latest research study on the use of self-service technology.  

Kohl’s is heading into the holidays with a loss of momentum after third quarter same store sales declined 1.8% and the company missed analysts’ earnings estimate by four cents.

The third quarter comp decrease of 1.8% was on top of a prior year decline of 1.6%. Total sales at the operator of 1,163 stores declined slightly to $4.37 billion from $4.44 billion. Net income declined to $142 million, or 70 cents a share, from $177 million, or 81 cents a share.

San Mateo, Calif. -– 11 Main Inc., the U.S. online shopping platform operated by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Inc., has launched a mobile app optimized for iPhone, iPod Touch and Android, with an iPad version coming later in the year. The mobile applications are optimized for each platform and offer 11 Main’s online shopping experience.   

Minneapolis -- Promising an “Amazon-like experience” in its stores, Target Corp. has acquired a Pittsburgh technology firm that says its software platform brings "an Amazon-like shopping experience" to in-store customers.   Target and Powered Analytics co-founder Collin Otis have confirmed the deal but have not disclosed the terms. The firm will reported remain headquartered in Pittsburgh.  

Ridgefield, N.J. –- Samsung is taking direct aim at the burgeoning market for Apple’s iBeacon in-store marketing/messaging solution with its own new beacon-based tool called Proximity. Like iBeacon, Proximity uses Bluetooth Low Energy beacons to identify and track the location of shoppers in a store by their mobile devices and send them offers and promotions based both on their purchase history and location in the store.  

New York -- Ramping up for Black Friday, Amazon increased its product listings by 43% in the third quarter of 2014, adding four times as many SKUs to its website between July and September than it did in the entire first half of 2014. According to a report by CommerceHub, the online retail giant primarily grew products within the categories of electronics, home improvement and health & beauty.