Sales & Marketing

Walnut Creek, Calif. -- The Home Depot comes in first in a new ranking of retail digital gift card offerings. Retailers with the highest overall digital gifting scores in  a new RSR Research benchmarking report, “Digital Gift Cards: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly, are The Home Depot, Sephora, Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts and The Cheesecake Factory.

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ECRM compared retail circular advertising in September 2012 versus September 2013 and noted trends occurring across top retail chains. Home Depot continued to cut circular pages, down 80% year-over-year to only four for September. Despite this, it has continued to dramatically increase the density of its circular, with a 180% increase in ad blocks per page. On the other hand, Lowe’s saw only minor year-over-year changes, with 25% increases in ad blocks per page and per circular.

Washington, D.C. -- More than half (55%) of all retail-related Internet time in June 2013 originated on smartphones and tablet devices combined, compared with just 45% originating from desktop devices. According to a report produced in partnership by the National Retail Federation (NRF) with comScore and The Partnering Group and released at Shop.org's Annual Summit, smartphone Internet usage in June 2013 totaled 44% of retail Internet minutes, up from 17%in June 2010. Tablet internet usage accounted for 11% of total minutes on retail sites.

Serta Simmons Holdings has announced that Bob Sherman, CEO of National Bedding Company (doing business as Serta International), has decided to leave the company to pursue other interests, effective immediately.

The company stated that during his 25-year tenure, Sherman drove a combination of groundbreaking product innovation, strong customer relationships and operational excellence that led Serta to become the top mattress brand in the United States. 

By Bill Loller, VP, IBM Smarter Commerce

The mobile revolution has ushered in a new era in retail shopping, transforming the experience into a quick, easy and hyper-personal exchange which is all conducted from the touch of a mobile device. As the trend and spending power behind online shopping continues to grow, brick-and-mortar locations are tasked with finding ways to incorporate mobile technology into the in-store experience in order to stay relevant, competitive and alive.

According to Shop.org, more than half (55%) of all retail-related Internet time in June 2013 originated on smartphones and tablet devices combined, compared with just 45% originating from desktop devices. 

Shop.org teamed up with comScore and the Partnering Group to generate the report, released at Shop.org's Annual Summit, which found that smartphone Internet usage in June 2013 totaled 44% of retail Internet minutes, up from 17% in June 2010. Tablet internet usage accounted for 11% of total minutes on retail sites.

Lewisville, Texas – Consumers prefer prepaid cards that can be used anywhere to gift cards from specific retailers and physical cards to digital cards.

According to the new “People Prefer Prepaid Rewards” study from Parago, more than half of shoppers prefer prepaid cards over gift cards from Amazon, iTunes, Target, Walmart, Home Depot and more. In addition, two out of three shoppers prefer physical cards over digital cards.