News

Los Angeles - StepsAway is expanding the footprint of its mobile in-store deal app with Starwood Retail Partners. The agreement will expand StepsAway’s multi-state footprint, bringing its mobile retail solution to 10 Starwood properties across the US.

Oak Brook, Ill. – Ace Hardware is trying to make the bleary month of March as colorful as possible for consumers. Ace has launched 31 Days of Color, a month-long omnichannel consumer program featuring daily paint color selections alongside expert design advice and daily giveaways, as well as a nationwide paint makeover sweepstakes.

Every day in March, Ace is unveiling a "Color of the Day" selected from Ace's Clark+Kensington and Valspar paint lines. In addition, Ace’s design experts are providing daily color and design tips.

New York -- Visa Inc., Pizza Hut and Accenture have teamed up to develop a connected car to test mobile and online purchases on the go. The connected car is expected to feature Visa Checkout (Visa’s online payment service), cellular connectivity, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), and Beacon technology deployed at Pizza Hut restaurants to alert staff when the customer has arrived and is ready to pick up the order. Accenture is managing the integration of the technologies.

Pittsburgh – Strong omnichannel performance, as well as successful marketing and merchandising execution, helped Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc. deliver fourth quarter fiscal 2014 net income beyond previously issued guidance. Dick’s reported net income of $155.5 million, up 12% from $138.6 million a year earlier.

Dick’s plans to open 54 new stores during fiscal 2015, including 45 namesake stores and nine Field & Stream stores.

Waban, Mass. – Publix, Aldi and H-E-B share something besides all operating in the grocery sector. Based on a study of 10,000 U.S consumers, the three supermarket chains earned the highest scores in the 2015 Temkin Experience Ratings that ranks 293 companies across 20 industries.

Joining those firms in the top 12 spots are retailers Chick-fil-A, PetSmart, Amazon.com, Trader Joe's, Papa John's, Walgreens, and Hannaford's.

Houston – A dropping cost of sales helped Stage Stores Inc. boost net income 76% to $43.72 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014, up from $18.26 million the same quarter a year earlier. Net sales climbed 6% to $524.89 million from $492.54 million, and same-store sales rose 6.4%.

Stage Stores plans to close 10-20 stores and open two new stores during fiscal 2015.

San Francisco - For the first time in more than a decade, OpenTable, a provider of online restaurant reservations and part of The Priceline Group, unveiled a rebrand. Core elements of the new OpenTable brand include a reimagined company logo mark and tagline, as well as a fresh and current look and feel of the web and mobile experiences for both diners and restaurants.  

Goleta, Calif. - Deckers Brands is rolling out the company's first multi-brand e-commerce platform in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, Style X Deckers. The service, which has more than 100 SKUs of products from UGG, Teva, Sanuk and Hoka One One is expected to launch in five APAC countries during the first half of 2015.

By Hyaat Chaudhary, CEO, Carbon Media Group

At a time when the traditional separation between online and brick-and-mortar retailers is blurring, brands need to be smarter to win on the digital front. The ability to establish a presence online — and to capitalize on digital marketing and promotions driven by social media and other online tools — is no longer a luxury: it is a necessity.

Minneapolis – Strong sales of high-margin consumer electronics and TVs during the holiday season, as well as declining expenses, helped Best Buy Inc. beat Wall Street expectations for profit in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2015. The retailer on Tuesday reported that net income surged 77% to $519 million from $293 million in the year ago period.