News

Cincinnati -- Americans are increasing their use of social media for discussions about favorite brands, while slowing down on face-to-face and phone conversations about product likes and dislikes, according to a report by Colloquy, the research arm of LoyaltyOne, a global provider of loyalty and marketing programs.

Social media brand recommendations have grown 4% since Colloquy conducted survey research in 2011 on the word-of-mouth habits of U.S. consumers, while face-to-face recommendations have declined 4% in that time period.

Los Angeles -- Rite Aid Corp. has been ordered to pay more than $12 million to settle a civil environmental protection lawsuit filed in California claiming about 600 of its stores illegally dumped pesticides, bleach and other toxics, the Associated Press reported.

The lawsuit was filed last month by the district attorneys of Los Angeles, San Joaquin and Riverside counties, with a total of 52 California district attorneys joining the civil action.

Roswell, Ga. – PGA Tour Superstores plans to improve operational efficiency and prepare for future growth using the SAP HANA business intelligence platform and the new SAP Customer Activity Repository application.

In an Oct. 8 session at the SAP Retail Forum 2013 in Dallas, Stephen McDonnold, CIO of PGA Tour Superstore, explained how his company and Cognizant Technology Solutions are working with SAP to create an IT environment supporting maximum operational efficiency.

Sandy Springs, Ga. - When Arby’s recently launched a new brisket sandwich menu item, the retailer chose PunchTab to help build a rewards campaign called “The League of Brisket.” The campaign encourages customers to join the league and complete challenges to earn free food and gear, as well as an entry for a chance to win the grand prize of pro football tickets and “the ultimate tailgate party.”

San Francisco - Walk-by conversion and in-store engagements among U.S., consumers slipped in September compared to August as consumers became more cautious and less compelled to shop after back-to-school spending. In-store analytics technology vendor Euclid’s U.S. Retail Benchmarks for September 2013, based on 20 million domestic shopping sessions, suggest September same-store and total store sales may be sluggish for many retailers.

Specific findings include:

Dallas – SAP previewed a mobile app called Snap at its SAP Retail Forum held in Dallas Oct. 7-9. Designed for both tablets and smartphones, Snap is aimed at consumers who purchase items that require DIY assembly.

New York - The Deloitte Consumer Spending Index moved down again in September, showing the second month of small declines. The Index tracks consumer cash flow as an indicator of future consumer spending.

Boston – College students most frequently eat snack foods in the afternoon and are frequently replacing meals with snacks. A new study from marketing agency Fluent shows that 75% of college students replace meals with snacks and afternoon snacking is three times more popular than morning or late night snacking.

Other notable findings of the survey college students age 18-25 include:

London -- Storage Made Easy announced that the global cosmetics retailer Lush has chosen to use its Enterprise File Share and Sync solution with data stored on OpenStack Swift.


Lush ran an initial two month trial with 50 people prior to moving forward with the Storage Made Easy solution. They subsequently rolled out the solution in stages, by department, first to 150 people and then on to 300 people, and then again on to 500 people.

West Chester, Pa. - Liberty Interactive Corporation plans to create a QVC Group tracking stock as part of a recapitalization of the Liberty Interactive Group tracking stock. The QVC Group class of common stock will track the value of QVC, Inc. and Liberty's approximate 38% interest in HSN, Inc., along with cash and certain liabilities.