News

Gerrity’s customers move past lines
Mobile technology is helping shoppers at Scranton, Pennsylvania-based Gerrity’s Super Market Inc. check out much more conveniently.

Gerrity’s is beta testing a checkout app from mobile grocery solution provider Skip. The app, which Gerrity’s is the first retailer to test, lets customers scan items with their phone and place it in their cart or basket. For produce or other items that need to be weighed, shoppers place the goods on Skip scales that weight them and present a barcode for the price.
Three Big Take-Aways from the NRF Big Show
As always, it seems to have blurred by before it even started, but NRF 2016 is over. As the retail industry collectively unpacks it bags, sorts through business cards and decompresses, I’d like to offer a few key trends I observed during my own three days of Big Show immersion.

Back to Basics

Emerging Trends in Customer Experience for 2016

2016 will be a year when many niche innovations in customer experience will become mainstream as consumers expect more out of their shopping experiences, forcing traditional retailers to step up or risk becoming irrelevant. Marketplace buzzwords and emerging trends, such as personalization and seamless mobile access, will become table-stake elements of the customer experience.

Here are ways retailers will take their customer experience to the next level:

Personalization
Brickell City Centre announces 40 new tenants

Swire Properties Inc, one of South Florida's leading international developers of urban real estate, along with retail co-developers Whitman Family Development and Simon Property Group, announced new tenants set to join Brickell City Centre's, a 500,000-sq.-ft- open-air shopping center under construction in the heart of Miami’s Brickell neighborhood.
Unilever targets football fans with Carson Palmer, Jordy Nelson ads

With the NFL Playoffs under way and Super Bowl 50 right around the corner, Dove Men+Care is challenging the idea that athletes’ strongest accomplishments happen on the field by celebrating the heroic impact of football greats in their personal moments.
2016 Retail IPO Outlook

When providing the BDO retail IPO outlook for 2015 at the beginning of this year, we asked: Will consumer businesses face a potential Alibaba hangover in 2015?
H-E-B to open convenience store format

Citing a Virtual Builders Exchange report, the San Antonio Business Journal last week reported H-E-B would be opening a pureplay convenience store operation with plans to construct a 7,500-sq.-ft. convenience and fuel center.
Walmart to hike pay of most U.S. workers; adding free short-term disability

The largest single-day, private sector pay increase ever will take effect Feb. 20, when more than 1.2 million Walmart U.S. and Sam’s Club associates receive a pay increase.

The salary hike is the second phase of the company’s two-year, $2.7 billion investment in workers. But it is broader than the original plan, which was announced last fall.
Kmart launches pharmacy savings program

Kmart on Wednesday announced the launch of its new Pharmacy Savings Plus program, an initiative aimed at saving underinsured or uninsured patients money on their prescriptions and other pharmacy services.
Genesco sells Lids team sports division

Genesco has sold a subsidiary that sells apparel and equipment to schools and youth sports programs to a larger Texas-based competitor.

BSN SPORTS, a division of Varsity Brands and a direct marketer and distributor of sporting goods to the school and league markets, announced that it has acquired Lids Team Sports from the Lids Sports Group, a division of Genesco Inc.
Staples, Office Depot extend merger agreement

Staples is giving itself three more months before calling off its proposed $6.3 billion acquisition of Office Depot, giving the companies time to fight an antitrust lawsuit with the Federal Trade Commission.
Report: Rite Aid deploys beacons in all its stores

Rite Aid has rolled out proximity beacons in more than 4,500 stores across the U.S., which, according to tech news website ZDNet, is the largest rollout of beacon technology ever in a retail setting.