Data & Analytics

Minneapolis -- Christopher & Banks announced the Oct. 6 grand opening of 37 stores that reflect the company’s updated retail strategy of bringing its plus-sized CJ Banks brand under the Christopher & Banks banner. The stores combine missy, petite and women's sizes in one shopping location.  

San Bernardino, Calif. -- Stater Bros. Markets received the “Best Emissions Rate” Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) GreenChill Partnership for having the lowest corporate-wide refrigerant emissions rate of all the GreenChill partners in 2013. There are approximately 8,000 GreenChill partner stores throughout the nation.
 

New York -- Consumers are well positioned to make the transition to mobile payments — with a little help from retailers, banks, payment networks and retailers, according to a new report from global consultancy Kurt Salmon.

Denver - Location marketing provider Placeable is predicting that online sales will grow by more than 15% during the 2014 holiday season, compared to the same period the prior year, more than tripling the anticipated 4%-5% growth rate for overall holiday sales. However, Placeable expects more than 90% of holiday sales to take place in brick-and-mortar stores, with 58% of consumers shopping at a national retailer they normally don’t visit.

Other Placeable predictions for the 2014 holiday season include:

New York — WebMD Health and Walgreens on Thursday announced  a partnership designed to improve health and wellness in America by helping and encouraging consumers to make healthier choices at home, work and on-the-go.
 
In the coming months, the companies will work together to provide WebMD’s virtual wellness-coaching programs directly to Walgreens customers. Walgreens will also incorporate WebMD content on a variety of health topics, co-branded by WebMD and Walgreens, into its digital experience and stores.

Deerfield, Ill. – Walgreens and The Western Union Company have launched international and domestic money transfers through a new Western Union stage and pay kiosk model via the Walgreen’s Balance Financial platform. Customers can send or receive money at more than 7,650 Walgreens and Duane Reade locations in 49 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Camp Hill, Pa. - For the four weeks ended Sept. 27, 2014, same store sales increased 5.1% from the prior-year period at Rite Aid Corp. September front-end same store sales increased 2.3%, while pharmacy same-store sales increased 6.3% and same-store prescription count grew 4.4%.

Total drugstore sales for the four-week period increased 4.5% to $2.02 billion, compared to $1.935 billion.

San Francisco - The RealReal, a provider of authenticated luxury consignment, has appointed Michael Groffenberger as senior category director of fine jewelry and watches. Just prior to joining The RealReal, Groffenberger was executive VP of Shreve, Crump & Low in Boston, prior to that he was a senior sales professional at Tourneau.

Groffenberger is filling a new position created by The RealReal, Groffenberger will run the department, overseeing the full-time staff of fine jewelry & watch expert authenticators.

Tamarac, Fla. – 3dcart, a hosted e-commerce provider for small businesses, is launching a partnership with MasterCard for MasterPass, the MasterCard digital payment solution, into its commerce offering. The new service will reach more than 17,000 online stores within the 3dcart network of small business.

Scandit, a developer of software-based barcode scanning technology for smartphones, tablets and wearable devices, has released an integrated suite of mobile apps that aims to enhance the consumer shopping experience and retail operations.

Scandit’s Mobile App Suite for Retail provides a series of fully customizable, cross-platform mobile applications for retail employees and customers including: Clienteling, Mobile Point of Sale (mPOS), Mobile Shopping (mShopping), Self-Checkout, Shopping Lists and Procurement.