News

San Francisco — Aisle411 on Wednesday announced a new functionality that will allow retail shoppers using Google’s Project Tango to search and navigate to product locations while getting rewarded in retail environments in a revolutionary new way.

Washington, D.C. — Walmart, along with the Women's Business Enterprise National Council and WEConnect International, on Wednesday joined forces to establish a unique logo for retail packaging of products from women-owned businesses. The new logo will bring consumer recognition of products provided by women-owned businesses on store shelves both in the U.S. and international markets. 

New York -- China's Alibaba Group Holdings plans to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange, Bloomberg reported. In a filing on Thursday, the company revealed it will use the ticket "BABA."

Alibaba filed for its IPO in May. The online giant is looking to sell about a 12% stake, the report said. Experts have said it could be the largest U.S. IPO ever.

SCHENECTADY, N.Y. — Price Chopper Supermarkets announced that it has cut about 80 positions, citing a need to improve efficiency within the company amid rising costs, including “skyrocketing” healthcare costs.

San Francisco - Salesforce.com has released Salesforce1 for Retail. Retailers can now leverage Mobile Clienteling and Salesforce Communities for Retail to help build one-to-one relationships with shoppers anytime, anywhere and on any device.
 

Conshohocken, Pa. -- Ikea is planning to raise the hourly minimum wage for employees in its U.S. stores by an average 17%, beginning January 1, 2015. In a move unprecedented among U.S. retailers, Ikea’s wage hike will vary in that it will be based on the cost of living in each store’s location. According to Ikea, the change will take the average minimum hourly wage in its existing U.S. stores (as of June 2014) to $10.76, a $1.59 or 17% increase, and $3.51 above the current federal minimum wage.

Houston -- Hungry Howie's Pizza has signed a multi-year agreement to exclusively use HungerRush Online Ordering. HungerRush is a product of Revention, which has been providing online ordering services since 2006.

New York -- Creative Realities and Wireless Ronin Technologies, a leading marketing technologies solutions provider, announced they have entered into a definitive merger agreement.  

By Jonathan Golovin, CEO of Retail Systems Inc.

David Campisi joined Big Lots a little more than a year ago as president and CEO and with sales and profits gathering momentum the nation’s leading off-price retailer has decided to begin paying a hefty dividend.

The operator of roughly 1,500 stores nationwide said it would begin paying a quarterly dividend of 17 cents a share as part of a more balanced approach to returning cash to shareholders and as a reflection of confidence in the company’s strategy and favorable long-term prospects.