News

Ikea goes solar in St. Louis
Conshohocken, Pa. – Ikea is taking a sunny approach to energy at its soon-to-open St. Louis store. The retailer has completed installation of solar panels atop its 380,000-sq.-ft. St. Louis store opening Sept. 30.
Gymboree colors the world for kids
Gymboree is launching a colorful new campaign aimed at increasing awareness of a cause near and dear to the heart of its core customers.

The retailer has started a new effort to raise money in Gymboree and Gymboree Outlet stores to fund arts and crafts requests made by teachers on DonorsChoose.org. The goal is to fulfill classroom requests in every county where there is a Gymboree retail location.

Belk gets the vote out for that certain look

Charlotte, N.C. – Belk Inc. is getting the vote out when it comes to selecting that certain look. Working with digital marketing provider HelloWorld, Belk is allowing customers to both submit and vote on “looks” such as dorm room, game room and night out, created with Belk merchandise.
Marbles smartens store and site operations with Salsify

Chicago – When a retailer includes the word “brain” right in its name, a certain level of operational intelligence is expected. For 30-plus-unit specialty educational toy and game retailer Marbles: The Brain Store, smartening up operations has included organizing product data on the Salsify product information management platform to provide merchandise intelligence across the organization.
Meijer surveys back-to-school shoppers

With back-to-school shopping on the horizon, parents are looking to get their shopping started early in the hope of getting the best deals, according to Meijer’s customer survey.
PayPal up in first trading day, has big plans

San Jose, Calif. – PayPal Inc.’s first day of trading as an independent public company on the Nasdaq stock exchange was a good one. The digital payment platform closed at a price of $40.47 on Monday, July 20, up 5% from the opening price of $38.39.

In 2014, when it operated as a division of eBay Inc., PayPal processed $235 billion in total payment volume and generated more than $8 billion in revenues. The company serves more than 169 million active customer accounts in 203 markets around the world.
XRC Labs: Designing the future of retail innovation

Free flowing venture capital dollars in the digital age have made business incubators and accelerators commonplace, but until now the retail and consumer packaged goods industry didn’t have one it could call its own.
BucketFeet seeks better store understanding with RetailNext

Chicago – Specialty footwear retailer BucketFeet, which launched online in 2011 and entered the world of brick-and-mortar retailing with its first stores (called “studios” in 2013), is seeking to better understand studio shoppers. BucketFeet is partnering with store analytics provider RetailNext to help extend its brick-and-mortar service and shopper experience capabilities.
Back-to-school is omnichannel at JCPenney

JCPenney Co. is launching a back-to-school marketing campaign that covers all the bases of omnichannel retailing.
Dunkin’ Donuts creates summer soundtrack

Canton, Mass. - Dunkin' Donuts is partnering with Spotify to celebrate summer musically. The campaign kicks off July 21 with a summer concert series that will span five cities, featuring five different emerging artists at pop-up concerts in high-traffic public areas.

The first show, today in Philadelphia, features Marian Hill. Additional artists to be determined will perform in Miami, Chicago, New York and Boston throughout the coming weeks.