News

Washington, D.C. -- The average holiday shopper had completed half (49.9%) of their shopping, slightly less than the 56.5% they’d completed by this time last year, boding well for retailers who are preparing for a very big holiday shopping weekend, according to the National Retail Federation’s latest holiday survey conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics. Specifically, 32 million or 14% say they have not even started, while another 20 million, or 8.9%  say they are already finished.

Walmart has appointed Krish Iyer president and CEO of Walmart India, effective Jan. 20, 2014. He will report to Scott Price, president of Walmart Asia.

Indianapolis — Simon Property Group has announced a plan to spin off all of its strip center business along with its smaller enclosed malls into an independent publicly traded REIT called SpinCo.

Mystery Tackle Box is a monthly subscription service that introduces beginner and expert anglers to new fishing lures and tackle. The innovative e-commerce operation sends subscribers a box containing $15 worth of fishing products every month.

Montreal, Quebec -- Multidev Technologies, developers of the ChainDrive multichannel retail platform, have developed a brand new POS software by completely redesigning its interface and adding dynamic omni-channel features. The ChainDrive POS software offers a unified system that provides a single transparent version of transactions, CRM, fulfillment, inventory and all back end operations.

ChainDrive POS has a touch-screen interface, is flexible and has customer service enhancing capabilities, such as its ability to be used on a mobile device.

The Campbell Soup Company has appointed Yin Woon Rani to the newly created role of VP of integrated marketing, effective Jan. 2, 2014. She will be based at Campbell’s world headquarters in Camden, N.J.

Rani will be responsible for establishing the strategic direction for Campbell’s advertising, media, global design and digital marketing and social media, and for ensuring alignment with Campbell’s business strategies.

Giant Food Stores is expanding its partnership with sister company Peapod again, this time with the launch of a new pickup spot at a store in a town near Philadelphia.

Giant-Carlisle and online grocery service Peapod, both banners of Ahold USA, announced the launch of the pickup service in Huntingdon Valley, Pa. The store is the 10th Giant location in Pennsylvania to include a Peapod pickup spot.

Boston – Eight-in-10 (77%) consumers would be willing to share their smartphone location data as long as they received enough value in return. A new study from in-store mobile marketing platform provider Swirl also revealed that consumers are much more likely to entrust their location information to their favorite retailers (65%) than to shopping/deals apps, Google or Facebook.