Sales & Marketing

While we’re only just getting started on 2014, already one of the big retail stories is store closings. While the economy is far from robust, we aren’t in a recession either, and so at first these closings might seem a little surprising. I don’t see it that way, however: The recent spate of planned store closing for 2014 is exactly what we should expect from an industry in transition. It’s not a crisis, so much as it is a realignment.

The ability to develop actionable insights by listening to social conversations is among several powerful new capabilities that have been added to Microsoft Dynamics CRM portfolio.

Microsoft introduced a comprehensive set of new marketing and social listening capabilities to its Microsoft Dynamics CRM suite which are designed to help organizations match their customers to the right products and services, engage with them in the right way at the right time and nurture relationships.

Redmond, Wash. -- Microsoft Corp. has enhanced Microsoft Dynamics CRM by adding a comprehensive set of new marketing, customer care and social listening capabilities to the suite. The new release is expected in the second quarter of 2014.

New York – 1-800-Flowers.com Inc. reportedly had a difficult time meeting customer demand for Valentine’s Day. According to CNN, the retailer has sent apologies via Twitter and Facebook to roughly 1,000 customers for deliveries that were late, missing or damaged.

Amazon has never been shy about tooting its own horn and the most recent example involves the company’s content engine known as Amazon Studios.

Since launching in November 2010, aspiring screenplay writers have submitted more than 20,000 movie scripts and 6,000 series projects. Amazon recently debuted a second batch of original series and one week later the company is heralding positive feedback from reviewers and customers.

La Jolla, Calif. — Ramsey Real Estate Group has announced the commencement of a $600,000 renovation to Decatur Inn Plaza in Las Vegas. The renovation will include new storefronts, design elements, exterior finishes, building systems, landscaping and parking lot work. Vacant suites will receive vanilla shell treatments. Structural elements will be repaired and replaced. The renovations will also include rebuilding the property’s monument sign. Existing businesses will remain open during the renovation.

With tax refunds arriving in mail boxes soon, the 6,500 unit GameStop chain is looking to capture its share of the windfall with a promotion involving gaming giveaways and a new car.

New York -- nGage Labs and Web Decisions have entered into an arrangement that combines nGage’s personalized mobile customer engagement capabilities with Web Decision’s omnichannel marketing database solutions to create a fully integrated database-drive mobile customer engagement solution.