News

Recently, I participated in a strategic conference that included several sessions on how to effectively use advertising and promotion to reach moms, millennials, multiculturals and other shopper segments. Not surprisingly, significant emphasis was placed on the use of emerging digital and mobile media. But each session also reinforced that traditional media including television, radio, retail feature ads, and Free Standing Insert (FSI) coupons should not be undervalued.

Austin, Texas -- Gen Y consumers, whose annual spending power is estimated at $200 billion, prefer to shop at retailers that offer financing options, according to a new study.   An eNation study of more than 2,000 consumers, commissioned by financial technology company NewComLink, found that 59% of shoppers between the ages of 18 and 34 say their choice of retailer is impacted by whether that retailer offers financing options.  

Stride has developed a new app called RiteFit that allows an iPad to be used as a device to accurately determine a child’s shoe size.

By Nicholas Fortuna & Paula Lopez of Allyn & Fortuna LLP  

The Walmart Foundation increased to $10 million its investment in an educational program on track to provide training to 60,000 women in 150 factories.

The increased funding commitment to the Women in Factories program begun in 2011 was announced in Beijing by Scott Price, CEO of Walmart Asia at the 2014 APEC CEO Summit. The Women in Factories program has already provided training to 40,000 female factory workers and by the end of 2016 the figure is expected to increase to 60,000 women at factories in India, Bangladesh, China, El Salvador, and Honduras.

Princeton, N.J. -- Heartland Payment Systems, the nation's fifth largest payments processor and a leading provider of merchant business solutions, has acquired leading foodservice industry enterprise-level POS software provider, XPIENT Solutions.  

Customers and store associates at Sobey’s stores in Canada are seeing red after the operator of 1,500 stores became the latest company to use PECO Pallet’s distinctively colored pallets.

PECO said it added Sobeys to its growing list of authorized distributors in Canada so that Canadian and U.S. manufacturers and produce companies can now ship their products into Sobeys supermarkets throughout Canada on PECO’s wooden pallets.

New York --  Chinese E-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holdings sold about $2 billion worth of goods on its websites within approximately the first hour of its annual shopping extravaganza.    This is the sixth year Alibaba has celebrated Singles Day, or 11.11 (named after the date, 11/11), a 24-hour deep-discount festival designed to boost sales during an otherwise weak period in China's sales calendar.