News

Denver - Location marketing provider Placeable is predicting that online sales will grow by more than 15% during the 2014 holiday season, compared to the same period the prior year, more than tripling the anticipated 4%-5% growth rate for overall holiday sales. However, Placeable expects more than 90% of holiday sales to take place in brick-and-mortar stores, with 58% of consumers shopping at a national retailer they normally don’t visit.

Other Placeable predictions for the 2014 holiday season include:

New York — WebMD Health and Walgreens on Thursday announced  a partnership designed to improve health and wellness in America by helping and encouraging consumers to make healthier choices at home, work and on-the-go.
 
In the coming months, the companies will work together to provide WebMD’s virtual wellness-coaching programs directly to Walgreens customers. Walgreens will also incorporate WebMD content on a variety of health topics, co-branded by WebMD and Walgreens, into its digital experience and stores.

Boston – Online home furnishings retailer Wayfair Inc. launches its initial public offering (IPO) today. The online home furnishings retailer is offering 11 million shares of common stock at $29 per share, which is above Wall Street projections.

The share offering includes 10.5 million shares of Wayfair stock and 500,000 shares from selling stockholders. Wayfair will not receive any proceeds from the selling stockholder shares, meaning the company should raise about $304.5 million in the IPO.

Camp Hill, Pa. - For the four weeks ended Sept. 27, 2014, same store sales increased 5.1% from the prior-year period at Rite Aid Corp. September front-end same store sales increased 2.3%, while pharmacy same-store sales increased 6.3% and same-store prescription count grew 4.4%.

Total drugstore sales for the four-week period increased 4.5% to $2.02 billion, compared to $1.935 billion.

Denver - Wrap & Send Services, a luxury retail packing and shipping solution, is offering professional in-store and warehouse support for the 2014 holiday season. Currently, Wrap & Send Services works with many luxury big-box stores in New York City, as well as 30 cities across the U.S.

Wrap & Send's expert packing and shipping solution help manage the volume, cost, speed and branding standard that is required when shipping from the store.

Tamarac, Fla. – 3dcart, a hosted e-commerce provider for small businesses, is launching a partnership with MasterCard for MasterPass, the MasterCard digital payment solution, into its commerce offering. The new service will reach more than 17,000 online stores within the 3dcart network of small business.

Hoffman Estates, Ill. – Sears Holdings Corp. is selling most of its 51% stake in its Sears Canada division to shareholders as its looks to boost its liquidity before the crucial holiday selling season. Sears, which previously said it was exploring options for the struggling Sears Canada unit and retained Bank of America Merrill Lynch in May 2014, expects to raise as much as $380 million by November 2014. 

Lay's has issued a last call for votes in its "Do Us a Flavor" contest. Since July 28, consumers have been putting the four finalist flavors — Lay's Cappuccino, Lay's Cheddar Bacon Mac & Cheese, Lay's Kettle Cooked Wasabi Ginger and Lay's Wavy Mango Salsa — to a nationwide taste test.

Chosen from more than 14.4 million fan submissions gathered between January 13 and April 5, fan votes will decide which of the four finalist flavors should be named the winner and remain on store shelves after the contest ends.

The Bon-Ton board of directors has added Beth Grumbacher, daughter of board chairman and strategic initiatives officer Tim Grumbacher, to its ranks, expanding the number of members to 10.

Groupon has unveiled a free app that pays people cash for buying featured grocery and consumer-packaged goods items each week at any supermarket or retailer in the United States and Canada called Snap.

Android and iPhone users can now earn money when they buy an item listed in the app and take a picture of their receipt. To mark Snap’s debut, people who download the app and use it to submit any grocery receipt through Nov. 11 can enter a sweepstakes to win a year of free groceries for an entire family, a value of $13,000.