Data & Analytics

Marketing experts routinely advise retailers to send customers notifications, such as emails and texts, informing them of discounts or following up on purchases and site visits. But such notifications may be doing more harm than good.

Lakeshore Learning Materials, a Carson, California-based specialty retailer of educational materials with about 60 stores nationwide, is taking a smart approach to customer service. The company has selected and implemented Aptos (formerly Epicor Retail) solutions to help streamline and mobilize store operations, and support cross-channel order management and customer engagement.

Most consumers would prefer to buy products from nearby stores. Shoe Carnival Inc., an Evansville, Indiana-based specialty footwear retailer with 404 stores, is responding to that preference with a new local marketing initiative.

Shoe Carnival has implemented the SIM Partners Velocity local marketing automation platform, to scale local search marketing in an effort to drive incremental in-store traffic and sales, as well as improve the overall customer experience.

Walmart has returned to its acquisitive ways in Silicon Valley with the purchase of PunchTab, a four-year old company with talent and technology to help the retailer’s Sam’s Club division better personalize offers.

Jeremy King, head of WalmartLabs, and Jamie Iannone, president and CEO of Samsclub.com announced the deal to acquire PunchTab in a joint statement on the @WalmartLabs site. The deal involves the purchase of PunchTab’s and six employees who will join WalmartLabs including founder Mehdi Ait Oufkir.

Steinmart didn’t admit wrongdoing and the Securities and Exchange Commission didn’t bring any charges, but concluding a nearly five year old accounting investigation still cost the company $800,000.

An $800,000 fine may not sound like much to retailers with annual sales in the billions, but Steinmart is relatively small, generating sales of $311 million from 269 stores in the second quarter. An $800,000 fine represents 20% of the company’s net income for the period.