News

Salisbury, N.C. -- Food Lion has unveiled a new online tool, MVP Coupon Hub, to make accessing grocery coupons online easier for customers. The new tool, found on the grocer's website, features convenient load-to-card and printable coupons on customers' favorite items.

"We're proud to bring our customers the new MVP Coupon Hub, which helps customers save by offering hundreds of additional coupons," said Keith Nicks, director of loyalty and digital marketing for Food Lion.

Digital coupon marketplace RetailMeNot said that its investments are paying off, following a strong performance in the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, 2013.

The company reported net revenues for the quarter of $78.5 million, an increase of 55% compared to $50.8 million the prior-year quarter. Organic net revenues, which exclude net revenues from acquired businesses not owned during both comparative periods, increased 50%.  

Irvine, Calif. — Home automation product retailer Smarthome has deployed the 360pi 360price solution, providing the retailer with pricing intelligence for 3,000 SKUs in near real-time. Smarthome had built an in-house solution to compete with the SKUs carried by the large online pure-plays, but these SKUs only accounted for a fraction of its revenues.

More importantly, Smarthome needed a reliable solution to address its direct competitive set, those retailers focused expressly on the home automation market.

Sionic Mobile, an m-commerce company that provides mobile gifting, payments and rewards, has added William Mills, CEO of William Mills Agency, to its advisory board of directors. Mills has more than 30 years of financial marketing and branding expertise.

San Francisco – U.S. consumers remained active in January 2014 despite the effects of bad winter weather across much of the country. In-store retail analytics provider Euclid measured data on nearly 25 million domestic shopping sessions during January, revealing that shopper traffic and window conversion showed improvement from the prior year for another month in a row as shoppers looked to capitalize on a very promotional January.

As if the retail industry weren’t challenging enough, those operating stores in California are facing a growing number of lawsuits related to an operational consideration known as suitable seating.

New York – Ann Inc., parent company of Ann Taylor and The Loft, expects net sales and same-store sales to increase for the fourth quarter and full year fiscal 2013, on a year-over-year basis. For the full year, Ann Inc. issued guidance for total net sales of $2.49 billion, reflecting a total net sales increase of 5% and a same-store sales increase of 2%.

The weather posed a significant challenge for Fred’s in January. According to CEO Bruce A. Efird, Mother Nature not only disrupted consumer shopping patterns, but also resulted in more than 120 store closings during the final week of the month.

“Prior to the last week of January, sales were running in the mid-range of our forecast, with reconfiguration departments leading the way,” Efird explained.

Fred's total sales for January were $134.8 million compared with $173.5 million for the five-week year-earlier period.