News

Swansea, Ill. -- CrowdSource, a leading provider of managed crowdsourcing solutions, announced it has entered a definitive agreement to acquire San Francisco-based Servio, a competitor in the enterprise crowdsourcing industry. The acquisition will strengthen CrowdSource’s client portfolio, expand its workforce and augment its current service offerings.

Sidney, Neb. -- Cabela’s recently launched a new and improved mobile website for customers using handheld devices or smartphones. The new site gives customers a seamless mobile shopping experience offering the same information and services as Cabelas.com.

San Francisco – Several key retail customer metrics during October 2013 indicate holiday spending will rise this year compared to last year, even as holiday store traffic levels decline. According to data on nearly 20 million domestic shopping sessions during October analyzed by in-store retail analytics technology provider Euclid, window conversion in October, defined as the number of shoppers that enter a store as a percentage of the total foot traffic, rose to 8.3% from 6.5% last year, but decreased from 8.7% in September 2013.

By Stephen Springham, senior retail analyst at Planet Retail

Three quarters of results and a hat-trick of disappointments — Walmart U.S. again failed to achieve its guidance of flat comps in Q3, reporting a decline of 0.3%. This was not entirely unexpected as an already fragile consumer environment has not been helped by the government shutdown.

Orlando, Fla. -- Puma is improving the performance and reducing operational cost of its retail stores by giving district managers access to custom payroll and labor reports on a daily basis.

Framingham, Mass. – In addition to opening stores at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving, Staples is extending Black Friday sales the entire week of Nov. 24 through Cyber Monday on Dec. 2.  

The retailer’s Black Friday promotions include online daily deals changed on a daily basis, trade-in/trade-up technology recycling programs that give holiday shoppers cash toward to the purchase of a new product, and free shipping for members of the Staples Rewards loyalty program and on all purchases of more than $45.

Toronto -- To help increase profitability, Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) launched a promotion optimization initiative in Canada to improve the ROI of its flyers, or newspaper ads. HBC worked with Saferock to develop the solution, which uses sophisticated analytics to analyze millions of records each week.

Chicago – Online retailers are divided about the impact of the proposed Marketplace Fairness Act (MFA) legislation, largely based on company size. According to a new McGladley LLP survey of decision-makers at small and mid-sized online retailers, 38% of small and mid-sized online retailers with revenues between $10 million and $1 billion project that the MFA would have a negative impact on their profitability.

Walnut Creek, Calif. -- Retailers appear to be putting in the foundational elements to create a coordinated focus on the customer experience. The percentage of respondents to a new survey from RSR Research reporting that Marketing is the primary owner of customer data internally nearly doubled from 2012 to 2013, from 33% to 61%, and those reporting no explicit owner fell from 33% to 17%.

New York – HSN is launching an integrated marketing partnership with Spanish-language media company Univision Communications that will offer a fully integrated experience for U.S. Hispanic consumers.