News

New York -- Accenture and SAP AG are jointly releasing a new application called the Marketing Performance Solution by Accenture and SAP. Sold by Accenture, the solution enables retail chief marketing officers (CMOs) view and act on centralized key marketing performance data such as sales figures, media spend and social reach in near real-time.

Small businesses have long been a core customer group at Sam’s Club, so much so that at one point the retailer’s tag line was, “in business for small business.” It makes sense then that Sam’s would invest in a program that promotes entrepreneurship and for that the nation should be thankful.

A survey of consumers conducted by the National Retail Federation and published in the trade group’s September issue of Stores placed Walmart second on a list of the nation’s favorite e-commerce retailers, an encouraging sign given the company’s efforts to drive digital growth.

The husband of a woman who died following a bizarre series of developments precipitated by a shopping trip to Walmart is pursuing an even more bizarre lawsuit alleging the retailer and its manufacturer of plastic bags are at fault.

Walmart and Sam’s Club executives are scheduled to participate at several events in Northwest Arkansas in the coming weeks designed to educate the company’s suppliers on digital strategies.

Shopper activity increased last month, in line with ShopperTrak’s predictions. Total retail store shopper traffic increased 11% this August compared to the previous month, which corresponds with recently reported positive month-over-month retail trends. In addition, shopper traffic for August 2013 increased slightly compared to the same month last year by 0.7%.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Stein Mart is among the first off-price retailers to launch an online store.

"We are excited to announce that we are in the e-commerce business and happy to be able to serve our customers who like to shop online," said Jay Stein, CEO. "As we learn more and grow this business, we anticipate that this channel will rapidly become our largest flagship 'store'."

Retail sales associates just became obsolete. We don’t need them anymore. Like travel agents, technology has made them an endangered occupation. I witnessed this paradigm shift in a small hotel ballroom in Portland, Ore., where Storycode, an app development thought leader, demonstrated a sales enablement iPad app built for Nike.

Nordstrom never rushes things. It moves forward slowly, thoughtfully and creatively. And when the company makes a decision, observers tend to nod their heads and say: “Hey, that’s a good idea.”

A week ago, in a news conference announcing the acquisition of a West Side Manhattan Nordstrom store site for $102.5 million, Peter Nordstrom said: “We’ve had the intention and the drive, gosh, probably for the last 25 years to try to be here. We fully expect this to be our most successful store.”

Hampstead, Md. -- JoS. A. Bank Clothiers reported that net income for the second quarter dropped 38% to $14.2 million, compared with $23.2 million in the same period last year, amid weaker sales.

Total sales fell 10.7% to $232.5 million. Same-store sales plummeted 15.9%; direct marketing sales decreased 1.9%.