Data & Analytics

First Data Corporation, a leading global e-commerce and payment processing provider, has acquired Perka, a smart loyalty platform.

Perka became a First Data subsidiary on Oct. 4, and continues to operate autonomously as an innovative entrepreneurial company led by its current management and product development team. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
 

According to ShopperTrak, a leading provider of shopper analytics, the busiest holiday shopping days will occur between Dec. 20 and Dec. 24, and retailers should prepare accordingly.

Additionally, with a shortened shopping season and only four weekends between Thanksgiving and Christmas — down from five last year — retailers must be ready to capture holiday spending during a narrower window of time.

Sears Holdings is considering spinning off its Lands’ End and Sears Auto Center brands as part of a wide-ranging strategic review of its business. The company’s Sears Canada subsidiary has also sold five Canadian store leases to Cadillac Fairview Corporation Limited for about $383.4 million.

Quantum Retail Technology, a retail-focused supply chain management and inventory optimization software solutions provider, has named Mark Halverson as the company’s VP of professional services.

Halverson will oversee the full range of Quantum Retail's client program management, solution deployment and delivery, support and management of client partnerships during the implementation cycles.

Salt Lake City -- Consumers value salesperson expertise above all else, but they often find such expertise lacking, according to eXperticity’s first-ever Retail Buying Experience survey. The study found a striking expertise gap among sales associates in five retail areas: outdoor, sporting goods, hunting or fishing, health and nutrition, and prestige beauty.

 When asked to rate which services consumers most desire and value from retail sales associates, the top four were:

1. Product knowledge (73%);

New York -- Fountain Capital and Cheney & Mathes Properties have announced through their partnership, Fountain Mathes I, that they have acquired a 450,000-sq.-ft. portfolio of retail shopping centers with 16 properties in 10 states. Each center is shadow-anchored by Wal-Mart projects.

The centers largely contain national credit tenants such as AT&T, Cato, Dollar Tree, GameStop, Hibbett Sports, Payless and Shoe Show. The portfolio is 95% occupied.

By Oliver Jaeger, [email protected]

Grand Rapids, Mich. -- Meijer announced that it is now operating one of the largest all-clean diesel fleets in North America. As part of its ongoing green initiatives, the Grand Rapids, Mich.-based retailer's fleet utilized innovative technology to improve fuel efficiency and reduce its carbon footprint by nearly 60% since it first began implementing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's 2010 near-zero emissions standards three years ago.

Pittsburgh – GNC Holdings Inc. will use customer-centricity solutions from dunnhumbyUSA across all facets of its marketing to more effectively segment and engage with in-store and online customers. This will include personalized communications and offers to shoppers through both online and offline channels.

Bedford, Mass. – Daily mobile/online retail revenues surge an average of 55% on Cyber Monday (the Monday after Thanksgiving), but a corresponding surge in attacks drives hard losses, on average, as much as $500,000 per hour or $8,000 per minute. In addition, a new study of 1,100 U.S., and U.K., retail IT staffers from RSA and the Ponemon Institute shows that 66% of respondents expect that disruption would result in customer churn that would damage reputation and brand and could push losses as high as $3.4 million from a single hour of disruption.