Consumer Analytics

Peterborough, N.H. -- Eastern Mountain Sports said Tuesday it has launched its first customer rewards program; effective Sept. 1, the outdoor retailer debuted the EMS Rewards which allows customers to earn points on purchases.

New York -- The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment index climbed to a better-than-expected 74.3, compared to 72.3 in July and representing a three-month high.

Aggressive retail discounting and record-low interest rates boosted the results, but unemployment remains a big concern. 

“Confidence is lackluster,” Jim O’Sullivan, chief U.S. economist for High Frequency Economics Ltd., told Bloomberg. “It typifies the economy right now. It’s not strong, but not collapsing either.”

Austin, Texas -- A survey released Friday by coupon site RetailMeNot found that coupon use for back-to-school shopping surged this year, particularly for retailers selling books, school supplies and apparel.

According to RetailMeNot, which measured coupon usage during the July 1 to Aug. 20 selling period, as compared with the prior three months, the average daily coupon clicks increased more than 130% for book retailers, more than 40% for merchants selling back-to-school supplies and more than 30% for stores selling apparel and shoes.

CINCINNATI— Kroger is extending its summer fuel savings program through the fall and holiday seasons. Customers can now earn and redeem fuel points to save up to $2.00 off per gallon at Kroger Family of Stores Fuel Centers through Dec. 31.

"At our customers' request we are pleased to extend our special offer doubling potential fuel savings up to $2.00 per gallon through the busy fall and holiday shopping seasons," said Michael Donnelly, Kroger's SVP of merchandising.

NEW YORK — Macy's, Limited Brands and Gap Inc. all posted August same-store sales that topped analysts' estimates as retailers across the board generally posted strong sales, boosted by back-to-school shopping and aggressive promotions. The strong showing comes shortly after the news that consumer confidence for August slumped to its lowest level of the year.

A back-to-basics approach in Walmart’s apparel department has enabled the company to produce a modest degree of sales growth, but other value players are delivering high single digit comps.

Walmart reported its second consecutive quarter of positive same store sales in the apparel category during the second quarter when it produced a low single digit gain.

Walmart is touting another e-commerce win by the smart people working at its Silicon Valley research and technology hub known as @WalmartLabs.

Bentonville, Ark. -- Walmart announced a new search engine for Walmart.com. The new engine, named Polaris, was developed by a small team within @Wamart Labs,  the research and technology hub for innovation at Walmart. It uses semantic search technology to anticipate the intent of a shopper's search to deliver highly relevant results for them.  

July may not be a big month for online shopping, but traffic numbers at Target.com are heading in the wrong direction.

The online audience measurement firm comScore Media Metrix reported that Target.com had approximately 25.8 million unique visitors during July 2012 compared to roughly 26.5 million during July 2011. Despite the decline, on a positive note, Target was ranked 46^{th on the firm’s monthly Top 50 Web Properties report, making it the only traditional retailer beside Walmart to appear on the top 50 list.}

Schaumburg, Ill. -- Consumers focus on savings when they log in to their digital devices to shop for groceries, according to a new study from Nielsen. The top weekly U.S. activities related to grocery shopping on a connected device, ranging from a mobile phone to  tablet, included reading online grocery circulars (62%), looking for coupons online (55%) and browsing a manufacturer’s website for a grocery category (55%).