News

A new digital coupon program was successfully rolled out to Dollar General’s more than 11,300 stores in partnership with Coupons.com, the companies announced.

Meijer is generating traffic to its stores with weekly promotions and price drops on more than 300 of back-to-school items, which it plans to continue offering into September. In the past few weeks alone, customer traffic has consistently doubled, according to the retailer.

Belk president and chief merchandising officer Kathryn Bufano was named president at CEO of The Bon-Ton Stores late Thursday.

Nordstrom has entered into an agreement to acquire Trunk Club, a personalized clothing service for men.

Trunk Club delivers a stylist service that combines the convenience of online with a high-touch, personalized shopping experience. Nordstrom plans to leverage the acquisition to offer superior customer service and a seamless shopping experience.

Seattle – Amazon.com is making a serious bid to control the Indian e-commerce market with a planned $2 billion investment in its Indian operation. In a statement emailed to major U.S. media outlets, Amazon said it sees “huge potential” in India’s economy and e-commerce market.

Austin, Texas -- Whole Foods Market reported that profit for the third quarter rose to $151 million from $142 million last year, but revenue and same-store sales missed projections, sending the organic grocer’s shares downward.

Revenue rose to $3.38 billion from $3.06 billion, shy of the $3.39 billion expected by Wall Street. Same-store sales rose 3.9%, well short of the estimated 4.9% gain and marking the worst performance in at least 14 quarters.

Atlanta -- First Data has taken a key step toward expanding its payment services by acquiring Gyft Inc., the Silicon Valley-based company that entered the $100 billion gift card market in 2012 and pioneered the concept of a mobile wallet for gift cards.

Bangalore, India – Indian e-commerce platform Flipkart has received about $1 billion in funding from investors including existing backer Tiger Global Management, as well as new stakeholders Morgan Stanley and Singapore-based sovereign wealth fund GIC. Flipkart operates as an online marketplace for 3,000 individual merchants, similar to China’s Alibaba.com.

New York – J. Crew was ranked number one for overall online customer service in June 2014. According to monthly benchmark analysis from customer service analysis provider StellaService, J. Crew ranked first in phone support, 10th in email support and 12th in returns.

J. Crew last topped the rankings in January, but is one of only six companies to remain within the top 25 since that beginning of the year.

San Jose, Calif. – PayPal is rebranding its Bill Me Later online credit service as PayPal Credit. PayPal says it is making the name change as it moves credit more towards the center of our business, aligning it more closely with the overall brand.

In addition, PayPal plans to introduce PayPal Credit to the U.K. and Germany, based on requests from customers and retailers. The company also plans to expand PayPal Credit to other markets in the future.