Industry News - June 12th, 2009
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RETAIL AND TECHNOLOGY NEWS |
Men's Wearhouse Bids $67 Million for Filene's Basement
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A Men's Wearhouse
affiliate is the winning bidder after Friday's bankruptcy auction for
assets of off-price chain Filene's Basement. The affiliate, K&G
Acquisition Corp., offered a total of $67.0 million that will cover the
purchase of 17 to 20 of Filene's store leases; inventory from all 25
existing locations; leases for the company's headquarters and
distribution center, as well as the Filene's Basement trade name.
Men's Wearhouse competed in the auction against an affiliate of New
York-based developer Crown Acquisitions, as well as a group consisting
of off-price retailer Syms and Vornado Realty Trust. Under a previously
announced 'stalking horse' bid, Crown had agreed to purchase the trade
name and leases for 17 stores, but not the inventories, for
approximately $22.0 million.
Stores that will not be acquired are expected to be closed by mid-June,
with employees in those locations receiving all assistance outlined
under their employment agreements with Filene's. Because Men's
Wearhouse had agreed to acquire all inventories, no liquidation sales
are planned.
Men's Wearhouse is expected to retain most employees in the store and
corporate facilities it is acquiring. The company is also expected to
honor Filene's Basement gift cards or merchandise credits.
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Market Basket Deploys Advanced Pricing Software
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Market Basket Foods Stores, operators of 30 full-service grocery stores throughout East Texas and Louisiana, selects the Revionics
Advanced Pricing Solution (RAPS) to drive more consumer-centric pricing
and promotions. The RAPS solution will be deployed as an augmentation
to the Retalix HQ offering, already installed at Market Basket.
Using RAPS, Market Basket can calibrate prices on every item, every
week, without leaving money on the table. Additionally, RAPS Promotions
will help the grocer forecast the net impact of alternative offers and
product mixes within their weekly ads. With the help of RAPS
Promotions' ground-breaking functionality, Market Basket can create and
compare unlimited ad plans. RAPS Promotions will recommend items and
offers based on the grocer's unique promotional strategy and goals.
"At Market Basket our goal is to be more customer service driven while
being neighborhood-oriented," said Skylar Thompson, President of Market
Basket. "We selected Revionics for numerous reasons. The personnel at
Revionics were very knowledgeable and responsive to our business
objectives. We felt like they will be an integral part of our team.
Moreover, we were very impressed with the technology and philosophy
behind the system.".
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Charlotte Russe Connects Friends with Interactive Social Shopping Apps
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Charlotte Russe introduces interactive shopping technology on its Web
site to address the social networking and shopping habits of today's
savvy young consumer. The new app allows shoppers to send friends a
link to a specific product or an invitation to shop through Facebook,
Twitter, MySpace, e-mail or IM.
Once they accept the invitation, the interactive shopping application,
ShopTogether from DecisionStep, connects them for a joint shopping
session on www.charlotterusse.com. Shoppers can chat, view products,
collect mutual favorites and share ideas that lead to faster, better
buying decisions.
By using ShopTogether, shoppers can experience the social benefits of
shopping in the real world with their friends online. Additionally,
groups of friends can pick out personal favorites together in
real-time.
Charlotte Russe first launched the ShopTogether technology on
www.charlotterusse.com last fall. Since partnering, Charlotte Russe and
DecisionStep continue to test and develop new, innovative extensions
and functionality; connecting with the top social networks is one of
the primary new advances of the application.
"Shopping for our customers is a fun, social event," explains Emilia
Fabricant, President and CMO of Charlotte Russe. "They want to play
with different looks and get one another's opinion. With the
ShopTogether application, we've taken our existing social shopping
feature and improved it, making it easier for her to connect with her
friends while connecting with our brand."
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1-800-Flowers.com Offers Live, Personalized Gift-Giving Advice
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1-800-Flowers.com deploys proactive chat from LivePerson,
a provider of online communication platforms which facilitate real-time
assistance and expert advice. The multi-channel retailer implements
LivePerson's third-generation engagement solution to help customers
find the perfect gift for any special occasion.
1-800-Flowers.com uses LivePerson's hosted, rules-based enterprise
platform to replicate the in-store experience on the Web. From
receiving gift-giving advice to obtaining assistance during check-out,
customers can be guided through their purchase by chatting with gift
consultants and customer service representatives. With this platform,
1-800-Flowers.com is reaching out to website visitors who will benefit
from real-time assistance.
"1-800-Flowers.com, we pride ourselves in offering the ultimate
customer experience," said Chris McCann, President of
1-800-Flowers.com. "The integration of the LivePerson platform on
11-800-Flowers.com allows us to take our customer's experience to the
next level by providing immediate answers in real time from
specialists."
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TheFind Launches New “Every Store” Initiative
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TheFind announces
its "Every Store" Initiative to work directly with popular e-commerce
platforms such as ProStores, Infopia, Yahoo! Merchant Solutions, and
others to automatically include every platform's roster of online
stores within TheFind's search index.
TheFind crawls the entire Web to find online stores, and its search
index currently includes over 350 million products - more than 10 times
the size of even the largest online marketplaces. Last month alone,
over 12 million shoppers searching on TheFind visited more than 90,000
different online stores.
"TheFind wants no store left behind," said Siva Kumar, co-founder and
CEO of TheFind. "All retailers - large, small, new or established -
belong in TheFind's comprehensive search results. Every month more and
more people visit TheFind to shop the full spectrum of retail
categories primarily because they want to find the complete range of
stores and options available to them."
Retailers jumping into the world of e-commerce will now get
automatically included in TheFind's search index at no cost to them -
simply by being on one of the several leading e-commerce Platforms
partnering with TheFind.
Kronos Announces New Service for Labor Cost Savings
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Kronos announces
a new service to uncover significant labor cost savings through
detailed analysis of an organization's time and attendance information.
This service, known as The Diagnostic Assessment, analyzes a retailer's
existing time and attendance data to uncover excess labor costs in
areas such as overtime; schedule effectiveness; time that is paid but
not worked; and absenteeism.
The Diagnostic Assessment also finds trends and outliers in each of
these areas, and uses the organization's own historical performance to
identify root causes contributing to the excess labor expense. The
service takes approximately one week to complete. At the end of the
engagement, Kronos delivers a detailed report that identifies potential
areas of cost savings and recommended actions to reduce labor expense
and improve workforce performance.
The Diagnostic Assessment does not require deployment of any new
technology. The service is performed by Kronos service professionals
using the Kronos Workforce Analytics labor analytics application.
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