Sales & Marketing

Cambridge, Mass. - Vee24, a provider of live video assistance solutions, is releasing the VeeStudio Software Development Kit (SDK) for iOS and Android, as well as VeeAssist, a new co-browsing product designed to enhance call center satisfaction. VeeAssist expands the company’s assisted selling solutions, including live video help, from the Web to now also support traditional telephony-based call center engagements, while the mobile toolkit extends its live help solution into brands’ iOS and Android mobile applications.

It’s a common retail scenario: Last year, several sites deployed consistent schedules and set-points and also staged energy-consuming assets into groups that engaged at different times of the day. These executed measures led to significant kWh savings.

Fast Retailing Co.’s Comptoir des Cotonniers division has launched “Fast Shopping,” which allows European shoppers to purchase items in 20 seconds on their mobile devices via an application from Powa Technologies, London. Shoppers using the PowaTag app can scan items they see on ads in various places to make the purchase and with one click, complete the transaction and have the goods delivered to their home within 48 hours.

Toronto - Slate Retail REIT has entered into a binding agreement to purchase North Summit Square, a 99% occupied, 224,530-sq.-ft. grocery-anchored shopping center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for $15.8 million. The property is anchored by Sam's Club.

"We are very excited to announce our first acquisition since listing on the TSX," said Blair Welch, CEO of Slate Retail. "We see several further opportunities to make accretive acquisitions of grocery-anchored centers in attractive markets."

Sporting goods and apparel retailer Academy Sports + Outdoors has renewed multi-year contracts with Auburn University and the University of Alabama. The renewal means that it will continue to sell the universities’ licensed products in its 13 Alabama stores.
 
The retailer is currently an official sponsor of University of Alabama’s Crimson Tide and official sporting goods retailer for Auburn University’s Tigers, and has been working with the two universities for several years.
 

Believe it or not (and I can barely believe it myself), the critical back-to-school period at the end of summer is right around the corner. While back-to-school is always big for retailers, this year’s period could be an especially important one, as 2014 has been underwhelming so far.

Redwood Shores, Calif. – Oracle Corp. has acquired Micros Systems, a provider of integrated retail and hospitality enterprise solutions, for $5.3 billion. This figure is 27-times Micros’ current earnings.

Micros offers on-premise and hosted cloud implementations of front- and back-office applications. Retail solutions include POS, e-commerce, CRM, merchandise planning and loss prevention.

By Adam Blake, VP and General Manager, Department and Specialty Retail, NCR