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Atlanta -- Burger King Corp. has launched a mobile payments pilot program in partnership with Firethorn Mobile, a subsidiary of Qualcomm Inc.

The BK Mobile Crown Card allows consumers to pay for their purchase by using an Android or iOS-based phone to scan a QR tag placed on counters or drive-up windows of participating restaurants. The pilot is taking place in approximately 50 Burger King restaurants in Salt Lake City, and surrounding metropolitan areas.
 

With Target set to open its first stores in Canada in less than a year, one source of competition will come from the rapidly growing Dollarama chain.

The 721 unit Montreal-based Dollarama chain said its first quarter same-store sales increased by a weather-aided 8.1%, and total first quarter sales increase 14.9% to $398 million for the period ended April 29. Earnings per share increased 40% to 56 cents from 40 cents. The gross margin rate increased to 36.3% of sales from 35.7% and expenses declined to 18.5% of sales compared to 19.7%.

Neil Ringel was named EVP at Staples Advantage, the office products company announced Thursday.

Ringel previously served as SVP of the Staples Advantage, the business-to-business division of the company focused on serving organizations with more than 20 employees. He joined Staples in 1995 and helped launched the Advantage group. He will replaced Jay Baitler who is retiring after 17 years of leading Staples Advantage. Ringel will report to Joe Dody who serves as president of Staples North American Delivery division.

CINCINNATI — Fuel sales at Kroger helped drive the company's total sales up 5.8% to $29.1 billion in the first quarter of fiscal 2012 from $27.5 billion for the same period last year. Total sales, excluding fuel, increased 4.3% over the same period last year.

Identical supermarket sales, without fuel, increased 4.2% in the first quarter over the same period last year, marking the 34 consecutive quarters of positive identical supermarket sales for Kroger.

FORT WORTH, Texas — With Pier 1 delivering yet another quarter of comps and earnings growth, it's easy to forget that the retailer was once struggling just to make a profit. And much of the credit for Pier 1's turnaround lies with president and CEO Alex Smith. So, it is no surprise that the company has decided to offer Smith a three-year renewal and extension of his employment agreement.

TORONTO — A study of big-box retail consumers, released Thursday, found that only two in five consumers believe that retailers value their input, and just 29% believe it is acted upon.

According to the Consumer Insights Panel survey conducted by customer experience management solution provider Empathica Inc., 85% of the 6,500 consumers surveyed have provided some form of feedback to big-box retailers, yet only 46% believe that brands actually use this feedback to make constructive changes to the customer experience.

Walmart in May continued its heightened level of advertising activity, hitting the market with an increased number of circulars that contained more pages. For a look at how Walmart’s promotional activity stacked up to other leading retailers, click here to see the last monthly data from Market Track.



 

DALLAS — Three weeks after being named the first civilian director/CEO in the nearly 117-year history of the Army & Air Force Exchange Service, Tom Shull officially took the reins today of the $10-billion military retailer. Shull replaced the Exchange’s last uniformed Commander, Brig. Gen. Fran Hendricks.

An “extremely unusual circumstance,” is how police described the situation that unfolded this week in a Walmart parking lot where a Chicago couple was arrested after several of their children were discovered bound and blindfolded.

The University of Arkansas Radio Frequency Identification Research Center will soon have a larger and permanent home following the unveiling this week of design plans for the new facility.