Data & Analytics

Sandy Springs, Ga. - When Arby’s recently launched a new brisket sandwich menu item, the retailer chose PunchTab to help build a rewards campaign called “The League of Brisket.” The campaign encourages customers to join the league and complete challenges to earn free food and gear, as well as an entry for a chance to win the grand prize of pro football tickets and “the ultimate tailgate party.”

New York -- Retailers reported somewhat disappointing same-store sales for September.  While only a handful of chains still report their monthly revenues, the tepid results of those that do raised concerns about the upcoming holiday season.
    
Gap Inc. reported that its same-store sales in September 2013 net sales were down 3% versus a 6% increase for September 2012. Net sales were flat compared with last year, totaling $1.46 billion compared with net sales of $1.45 billion for the year-ago period.

Retail Process Engineering, an innovative retail merchandising and supply chain solutions provider, has appointed Tom DiPinto as an account executive. 

DiPinto has more than 20 years of experience in enterprise class software solutions with deep experience in retail, project management and systems implementation. He will be responsible for identifying new clients and working with existing clients to align software solutions with business objectives to improve processes, grow the business and save money. 

Cosmetics retailer Lush is turning to Storage Made Easy’s Enterprise File Share and Sync solution with data stored on OpenStack Swift to help improve its global reach.


Lush ran an initial two month trial with 50 people prior to moving forward with the Storage Made Easy solution. They subsequently rolled out the solution in stages, by department, first to 150 people and then on to 300 people, and then again on to 500 people.

“Lush expects to reach more than 1,000 users by the time the solution is fully rolled out," said Jim Liddle, Storage Made Easy CEO.

Seattle – Starbucks is opening a new Evolution Fresh juicery in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., that the retailer says will quadruple its production of cold-pressed, never-heated juice. The $70 million, 264,000-sq.-ft. facility features advanced technology such as High Pressure Processing (HPP) machines.

Boston – College students most frequently eat snack foods in the afternoon and are frequently replacing meals with snacks. A new study from marketing agency Fluent shows that 75% of college students replace meals with snacks and afternoon snacking is three times more popular than morning or late night snacking.

Other notable findings of the survey college students age 18-25 include:

San Francisco - Walk-by conversion and in-store engagements among U.S., consumers slipped in September compared to August as consumers became more cautious and less compelled to shop after back-to-school spending. In-store analytics technology vendor Euclid’s U.S. Retail Benchmarks for September 2013, based on 20 million domestic shopping sessions, suggest September same-store and total store sales may be sluggish for many retailers.

Specific findings include:

Cincinnati -- Americans are increasing their use of social media for discussions about favorite brands, while slowing down on face-to-face and phone conversations about product likes and dislikes, according to a report by Colloquy, the research arm of LoyaltyOne, a global provider of loyalty and marketing programs.

Social media brand recommendations have grown 4% since Colloquy conducted survey research in 2011 on the word-of-mouth habits of U.S. consumers, while face-to-face recommendations have declined 4% in that time period.