Data & Analytics

Mobile payments are likely to take a giant step forward with Apple’s unveiling of Apple Pay, a new mobile payment platform built into the company’s new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. The platform will also work with the new Apple Watch, extending the service to over 200 million owners of iPhone 5, iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s worldwide.

Apple has unveiled its much anticipated Apple Watch featuring revolutionary new technologies and a pioneering user interface that could change the face of wearable health devices with a specially designed and engineered Digital Crown that provides an innovative way to scroll, zoom and navigate.
 

New York -- Omnichannel retailer Century Martial Arts will share insights on how it leverages business intelligence to better monitor and engage with customers during a Chain Store Age webcast on Tuesday, September 23, at 2 p.m. EDT (11 a.m. PDT). Sponsored by Microsoft Dynamics, the presentation will take BI from buzz word to a “getting down to business” strategy and discuss how to elevate reporting to real intelligence – and actionable insight.

New York -- Braintree, PayPal’s payments processor subsidiary, will let its merchants start accepting Bitcoin over the coming months. The news was announced on Monday at a technology conference in San Francisco.

The move would allow websites and apps that run payments through Braintree to accept bitcoin as a payment method. But there was no news of how many, if any, of Braintree’s customers, which include Uber, will decide to accept the virtual currency.

Ottawa, Canada - The retailers who “won” during the holiday season in 2013 were those that offered meaningful discounts on a sizable number of products on Black Friday instead of discounting a small number of door crashers. According to analysis from 360pi and Retail Systems Research, poor financial performance followed those retailers who discounted during the week leading into Black Friday, and those who kept discounts in place following Cyber Monday generally fared better than those who raised prices.

Lakeland, Fla. -- Publix on Monday was honored with three awards from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) GreenChill Partnership, including its Store Certification Excellence 2013-2014, and two Store Re-Certification Excellence Awards 2009-2014.

Publix earned the Store Certification Excellence award for achieving 26 GreenChill store certifications in the past year. Two Publix stores have achieved GreenChill Certification for five consecutive years and are being honored with the Store Re-Certification Excellence award.

Dallas - Epsilon has signed a multi-year agreement with Bulldog Solutions to integrate its marketing technology with Bulldog Gameplan software. Gameplan is a SaaS-based marketing application that delivers optimized marketing plans through full-funnel demand modeling, collaborative calendaring, marketing-mix optimization, and dynamic reporting of marketing’s impact on business results.  

San Jose, Calif. -- Hispanic grocery chain Mi Pueblo Foods appointed Martin Cortes as CFO, effective immediately.
 

By Andrea Morgan-Vandome, Oracle Retail

Austin, Texas - Whole Foods Market and one-hour grocery delivery service Instacart are launching a new partnership that enables customers to have Whole Foods Market products delivered in as little as one hour. Customers will soon also have the option to place orders via Instacart and pick up their order at a local Whole Foods Market store.