Data & Analytics

ECRM compared retail circular advertising in June 2012 vs. June 2013 and noticed some common overall trends across top retail chains. Although Staples and Walmart each saw large year-over-year increases in circular page count, page count was fairly stable overall, with none of these key retailers seeing a decrease of more than 13%.

Long Beach, N.Y. – For five-store women’s specialty retailer Ooh La La Boutiques, maintaining strong customer awareness is critical for successfully competing with larger, more established brands in its crowded vertical. Add in the impact of Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath on this chain which is located in and around Long Island, and you have a business in need of personal connection with its customers.

Los Gatos, Calif. – Crocs will implement Centric Software’s product lifecycle management software. Crocs will implement the full Centric 8 PLM suite to manage its product development process, including concept, design and sourcing.

The company will implement the Centric system on a worldwide basis to hundreds of users, including Crocs suppliers and partners. Crocs will integrate Centric 8 with its SAP enterprise software, according to Dale Bathum, Crocs’ chief product officer.

CONSHOHOCKEN, Pa. — Leading home furnishings retailer Ikea has extended its partnership with ECOtality, a clean electric transportation and storage technologies company, and plans to add 24 Blink electric vehicle charging stations across eight more locations in the United States.

East Cleveland, Ohio -- A switch from fluorescent lights to LED in its frozen-food cases will result in total annual energy and maintenance savings of approximately $570,000 for Stater Bros. The supermarket retailer has retrofitted the cases in nearly all of its 166 stores with GE’s LED refrigerated display lighting,

After evaluating lighting options, Stater Bros.’ retail marketing team chose GE’s 17-watt Immersion RV40 LED systems to replace the 60-watt fluorescent fixtures in freezer cases.

A carefully designed customer experience is the cornerstone of modern omni-channel customer relationship marketing. Retailers painstakingly craft marketing messages and engagement strategies that a customer will encounter at a specific time, in a specific place, via a specific channel. The experience often has some flexibility built in so it can adapt to individual customer behavior, wants and needs.

Williams Lake, B.C. – Canadian e-commerce company UNA Global LLC is opening a new online retail site, FitnessConnections4U.com. The site specializes in at-home fitness products such as weights, benches, exercise mats and vitamins and supplements. It also offers a free blog with product reviews, exercise routines, safety precautions, and articles.

For the second time in the past six years, 99 Cents Only said it was unable to file its annual report within the timeframe specified by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The company’s annual report on form 10-K for its fiscal year ended March 30 was due at the SEC no later than June 28. However, because of a range of inventory valuation issues identified by auditors and a new CFO, the company said it was unable to file the report without unreasonable effort or expense. The company did not indicate when it planned to file the report other than as soon as practicable.

LOS ANGELES — Virtual Piggy has appointed Ivo Weevers as the company’s creative director of mobile design. Weevers will be charged with leading and managing the mobile consumer experience team.

Weevers has 15 years of experience in creating mobile, web, device and desktop products across multiple platforms. He has directed design work and lead international design teams in the telecom, device, social media, banking, travel, entertainment, medical automotive industries.

FORT COLLINS, Colo. — Anheuser-Busch’s Fort Collins brewery is celebrating its 25th birthday.

The brewery took nearly three and a half years to construct, and according to the company was designed based on generations of brewmaster expertise. The state-of-the-art fixture has since undergone three expansions, with the last one having been completed April 2003, and which included a brewhouse renovation, additional grain silos, expansion of the fermentation and aging cellars, an additional warehouse and a new truck entrance.