News

Q&A: Customer engagement evolves with connectivity
At the recent MIT CIO Symposium, Bryan Kirschner, director of the research/strategy organization Apigee Institute, and Jerry Wolfe, CEO and founder of food industry platform services provider Vivanda, participated in a panel discussion on consumer connectivity and engagement. Chain Store Age followed up with the two experts to ask a few more questions about engaging today’s connected customer.

How can retailers use APIs (application program interfaces) to provide a more personalized customer experience?
Study: Marketers face issues with visibility, data, optimization
New York - Lack of a single customer view, an inability to deal with large amounts of data and lack of time for optimization are among the challenges that cause the biggest headaches for modern marketers. According to new research published by Econsultancy in partnership with SmartFocus, among the pain points marketers face are the challenges of making customer data actionable, bottlenecks caused by IT and web development teams and lack of time for campaign testing and optimization.

The report identifies the following key challenges:

Rite Aid completes purchase of pharmacy benefit manager

CAMP HILL, Pa. — Rite Aid announced on Wednesday that it has completed its previously announced acquisition of Envision Pharmaceutical Services from global private investment firm TPG and other shareholders. The transaction is valued at approximately $2 billion, including approximately $1.8 billion in cash and approximately 27.9 million Rite Aid shares.
Nilson Report: U.S. merchants’ card processing fees continue to rise

Carpinteria, Calif. -- With more Americans using credit, debit and prepaid goods to pay for goods and services, the amount merchants pay to process those cards continues to rise.
Analysis: The Gap, Art Peck, and store closures

Retail consulting firm McMillanDoolittle has posted an interesting blog on Gap Inc.’s ongoing efforts to turnaround its troubled namesake brand. Here is the full posting:
The Ugly Truth: Retailers losing millions betting on merchants’ intuition

The recent admission by Mickey Drexler to making “mistakes” while explaining the results of two J.Crew sweaters – one successful, one not – shined a bright light on the importance of each new product decision and the consequences of getting it wrong. In the grand scheme of things, one or two bad decisions do not always make or break a company. But when you string multiple bad decisions together, the stakes are much higher.
Oracle takes on Amazon Web Services with new cloud platform

Redwood Shores, Calif. – Amazon just obtained a new competitor for its Amazon Web Services cloud hosting and development platform. Oracle is going head-to-head with Amazon with a slew of more than 24 new additions to the Oracle Cloud Platform.

Oracle’s new integrated cloud services include infrastructure, platform and software delivered as a service. Specific cloud-based services include hosted Exadata-based production databases, archive storage, Big Data, enterprise mobility, and application integration.
Alibaba thinks, acts globally

Beijing, China - Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is both thinking and acting globally with a major expansion of its cross-border e-commerce initiatives. Alibaba’s new global effort includes the launch of 11 official country pavilions on its Tmall Global platform.
Deliv acquires Chicago delivery start-up

Menlo Park, Calif. - Same-day delivery company Deliv has acquired WeDeliver, a Chicago-based delivery service that powers same-day delivery for local retailers. Launched in early 2013, WeDeliver provides same-day delivery services for more than 200 retailers in the Chicago area
Leon’s Furniture launches responsive site with Blueport

North York, Canada - Leon’s Furniture has launched a newly upgraded e-commerce site featuring a fully responsive design, using technology and development services from Blueport Commerce. The new Leon’s website features design and functionality improvements including JavaScript technology to improve homepage, product detail page and shopping cart speed.
Ahold, Delhaize in $29 billion merger

New York -- The combination of Royal Ahold and Delhaize Groupe creates a new super-regional chain along the Eastern Seaboard that will serve 50 million customers weekly and generate annual sales of more than $60 billion.

The merger announcement was highly anticipated following months of speculation followed by confirmation of talks between the companies. Now that the merger agreement has been reached, Ahold and Delhaize said they expect the deal to close by mid-2016.
Ahold/Delhaize deal done to create 6,500 unit grocer

The combination of Royal Ahold and Delhaize Groupe creates a new super-regional chain along the Eastern Seaboard that will serve 50 million customers weekly and generate annual sales of more than $60 billion.

The merger announcement was highly anticipated following months of speculation followed by confirmation of talks between the companies. Now that the merger agreement has been reached, Ahold and Delhaize said they expect the deal to close by mid-2016.