Consumer Analytics

By Joe Majka, Verifone   President Obama’s BuySecure Initiative sets the U.S. Government on track to adopt chip and PIN payment security, parallels - and seeks to encourage - a commercial industry shift toward EMV card technology.    

Chief Information Security Officers (CISO) have become more common on companies’ senior leadership teams. They might be in even higher demand after the highly publicized data breaches at Target, Home Depot, Neiman Marcus and other companies in the past couple of years (see a timeline of data breaches in the past decade here). In fact, Neiman Marcus just hired its first CISO, Sarah Hendrickson.

E-commerce has changed the way consumers purchase products, but until very recently, the basic structure of the transaction and sale itself hadn’t evolved much: People browse for products they want, compare prices across sites, maybe submit a code for a discount coupon if they have one and make a purchase. But a recent development points to a big change on the horizon for ecommerce, and the symptom is the massive sales growth achieved by major retailers who have embraced the new model.

By Hemal Nagarsheth and Ramesh Siromani     Consumers view the “right” payment method, (accessing points, discounts, and special offers,) as a critical part of the purchase process – good news for branded private label cards which allow retailers to cultivate loyalty, improve operating results, and gain sustainable competitive advantage.   

Longtime Kroger executive and current chairman David Dillon is retiring Dec. 31 after 38 years with the company. Dillon, 63, will be replaced as chairman by Rodney McMullen, who also succeeded Dillon as CEO at the start of 2014, the company said. McMullen has served on the board since 2003.

New York - Fifty-one percent of consumers say saving money is their top priority this holiday season, and  40% are driven by finding the right product. Those are among the findings of a recent survey conducted by RSR.  

In the final installment of CSA Online’s PizzaRev series, we’ll explore the importance of choosing franchisees with a particularly discerning eye, and the process by which franchisors evaluate potential expansion markets.    FRANCHISEE FACTORS   

By Craig Johnson, Customer Growth Partners