Data & Analytics

Washington, D.C. — The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors has approved the rezoning application for Combined Properties’ Penn Da Plaza in Alexandria, Va. The project will completely redevelop the current retail center and replace it with a mixed-use project containing up to 400 new apartments, 41 townhomes and 35,000 to 45,000 sq. ft. of community retail. Combined Properties plans to anchor the retail component with a specialty grocer.

San Bruno, Calif. -- Stella & Dot has selected GT Nexus to serve as the company’s end-to-end global supply chain visibility platform. The specialty jewelry retailer will leverage GT Nexus to help sustain its pace of business growth by standardizing processes and delivering visibility into the status of inventory from the moment goods are ordered through delivery to global distribution centers.

Sears and Kmart are the first companies to engage with the Pikato platform and have already seen mobile engagement rates soar 1,100%, according to Pikato.

Pikato’s retail mobile marketing solution personalizes the customer shopping experience to increase consumer engagement and deliver measurable results.

Minneapolis – Target Corp. will reportedly testify about its recent massive holiday data breach in a Congressional hearing in early February 2014. According to Reuters, a Congressional commerce, manufacturing and trade subcommittee headed by Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.) will investigate large data breaches and their effect on consumers.

Minneapolis – Best Buy Co., Inc. saw its revenues for the nine-week holiday period ended Jan. 4, 2014 fall 2.5% from the same period a year earlier. Holiday revenues for the 2013 season were $11.45 billion, compared to $11.75 billion in the 2012 season.

Consolidated same-store sales only grew 0.1%, although online sales increased 23.5%. Best Buy cited a more intense than expected promotional pricing environment as a key factor in its disappointing holiday results.

Pittsburgh - GNC Holdings, Inc. will deploy VeriFone’s newest NFC-enabled multimedia payment device at more than 3,100 of its U.S. retail locations. The payment device will position GNC for potential future endeavors such as EMV (Europay, Mastercard and Visa) payments and customer marketing at the POS.

By Mark Bower, VP, Voltage Security

Duluth, Ga. -- Love’s Travel Stops & Country Stores has selected NCR Corp. to install NCR point-of-sale software and technology in its more than 300 locations across 39 states.

Traditionally, Love’s has replaced a quarter of their POS devices each year. But the retailer decided a complete refresh of 1,800 devices to solid state technology with greater processing power and screen size, gives them an immediate ability to create a better customer experience across their footprint.