News

Retailers are urged to provide a customer experience fit for the “digital natives” of the Millennial generation, who have grown up with constant connectivity and limitless personal choice. These all-important young consumers need to be able to buy any product on earth at any time with any electronic doodad they happen to be surfing the Net with at a given moment, or so it seems.

Crowdsourced grocery delivery provider Instacart is expanding its same day and one-hour service to new markets after receiving $44 million in funding from some big name Silicon Valley investors.

Montreal – Raymark is releasing a new mobile retail store operations solution called Mosaic Inventory Management. The new solution complements the suite of Raymark Mosaic retail enterprise applications with tools for end-to-end management and optimization of inventory from a handheld device, including support for iPhone and iPod Touch.

Duck brand duct tape has partnered with Fiskars to introduce Fiskars Duck Edition scissors. To mark the launch, Fiskars is hosting a sweepstakes starting today called Imagination on a Roll on its Facebook page.

Sweepstakes participants are encouraged to share their Duck Tape crafting project ideas on Fiskars’ Facebook page for a chance to win 21 rolls of Duck Tape and the new Fiskars Duck Edition scissors, a prize valued at more than $90. The sweepstakes runs through July 14.

Pleasanton, Calif. – Safeway Inc. has entered into a memorandum of understanding to settle the consolidated class action pending in Delaware state court filed on behalf of alleged Safeway stockholders against Safeway in connection with Safeway's proposed merger with an affiliate of AB Acquisition LLC. The proposed settlement includes moving the expiration date of Safeway’s “poison pill” shareholder rights plan three months ahead to June 19, 2014.

Amazon’s Appstore selection has nearly tripled in the past year and developers continue to report strong monetization from the apps they offer in the store.

The Amazon Appstore now has more than 240,000 apps and games, and is available in nearly 200 countries and on a multitude of devices. Additionally, Amazon Coins have become widely popular, according to the online giant — customers have spent hundreds of millions of Amazon Coins on apps, games and in-app items, it said.

By Jeff Weidauer, VP of marketing and strategy, Vestcom International

Healthy is hip. That’s the message coming from most media outlets, as well as consumers in general. Overall interest among Americans in healthful meal options is at an all-time high. Yet, at the same time, some healthy-focused retailers are struggling. Whole Foods Market has seen its growth slowing and has issued lower target guidance to shareholders. Smaller companies like Fresh Market are even resorting to closing stores. What’s going on?

Quill Ideas is the name of a new crowdsourcing platform the online division of Staples launched for customers and employees to share ideas in new and interesting ways.

Quill.com, acquired by Staples in 1998, is calling Quill Ideas an online-innovation community that is designed to solicit and implement ideas, review and rank them based on various protocols and then implement those that score the highest. A soft launch that began two weeks ago has already garnered more than 13,000 interactions made up of ideas, votes and comments, according to the company.