While
shying away from using the word coupon, JC Penney’s recent delivery of a
$10 “gift” to its email newsletter recipients demonstrated that the
beleaguered department store was finally bending to what its customers have been asking for all along: a deal.
Since the commencement of its “Fair & Square” promotional strategy
in Q1 of 2012, JC Penney has been fighting a losing battle with its
dwindling customer base, trying to spoon feed shoppers everyday low
pricing like its ice cream, while in reality they were tasting [insert
your least favorite veggie here]. What did JC Penney forget? In this
economy, consumers have the upper hand with retailers.
With sales set in a tailspin during the first half of the year, it’s
obvious that “Fair & Square” was a costly turnabout for both JC
Penney and its customers. But what price did JC Penney pay in terms of
lost shoppers?
According to the Consumer Equity Index™ for the highly competitive
women’s clothing segment, JC Penney’s share of female customers shrank
13% in the past year, leaving the department store with an index of 86.9
(baseline index = 100).* That equates to a loss of 1.3 million of the
department store’s most loyal female women’s clothing shoppers.
With their million woman march out of JC Penney, these shoppers appear to have gravitated to Kohl’s (index = 104.5), Macy’s (116.1), Target (121.6), and even Walmart
(112.2) for their women’s apparel purchases. Female shopper share for
each of these competitors has increased over the past 13 months:
A million shoppers are a lot to lose in a year’s time – especially in
just one category – but the numbers become even more sobering when you
consider how much potential revenue JC Penney let slip from its grasp.
With the average female spending more than $500 per year within the
women’s clothing segment, an estimated $745 million in potential revenue
has walked out of JC Penney’s women’s department over the past year –
that’s a big share of purse, if you will.
JC Penney’s $10 gift comes at a pivotal time for retailing: the
all-important holiday season. And with shoppers continuing to be drawn
to sales, coupons, and promotions like moths to a flame, JC Penney is
likely to see a short-term increase in the foot traffic it so
desperately needs. However, while the department store indicates that
this “gift” does not signal their return to couponing, if they want
repeat customers, they may have to keep the coupons gifts coming. * The Consumer Equity Index™ from BIGinsight™ is a year over year
index showing growth or decline of consumer preference share. An index
of 100 is flat, an index of 105 indicates 5% growth, while an index of
95 denotes 5% decline.
PURCHASE, N.Y. — Pepsi is commemorating its partnership with "The X Factor" with the launch of new Pepsi X.
This past spring, Pepsi joined "The X Factor" and embarked on "The
Pepsi Flavor Audition Tour," giving contestants and fans at more than 20
locations in 15 cities, the exclusive opportunity to sample four new
Pepsi flavors and be the judge of which one earned the right to be
called Pepsi X. With more than 15,000 contestant and fan votes captured,
one limited-edition Pepsi flavor will be crowned as Pepsi X, on Oct. 4.
New Pepsi X will be available beginning Oct. 8, in 12-packs, 2-liter
and 20-oz. bottles, while supplies last.
"Our partnership with 'The X Factor' has given us the opportunity to
further engage with our passionate consumers, and continue the Pepsi
legacy of supporting aspiring musical talent," said Eric Whitehouse,
director of marketing for Pepsi. "With Pepsi X, we put fans in the
judge's seat — giving them the power to select our next limited-edition
flavor — the Pepsi with 'The X Factor.'"
ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, N.J. — Unilever has launched a unique digital promotion that
extends savings to shoppers across multiple shopping trips and retailers.
The “One or Many” promotion, powered
by paperless grocery service SavingStar, gives shoppers $5 back after they
spend $20 in total on any Unilever products through Thanksgiving day.
Shoppers can access the deal on
Facebook via Unilever’s “Making Life Better" page or directly on www.savingstar.com. To redeem the offer,
users must register their supermarket loyalty card with SavingStar. It
then links the deal to all registered cards.
At the store, shoppers swipe their
loyalty card when they buy Unilever products. When the $20 goal is reached,
SavingStar enables shoppers to cash out their $5 savings with a direct deposit
to any bank or PayPal account, as an Amazon gift card or as a donation to
American Forests to help plant trees.
“What distinguishes this promotion
is the incredible range of products — more than 10,000 units of products
consumers know, love and trust — the combination of savings over multiple trips
and retailers and the ability to connect to retail loyalty cards,” said
Christine Cea, senior director, marketing communications for Unilever, in a
statement.
Wegmans to break ground on new supermarket in Burlington
Boston Business Journal
by Thomas Grillo, Real Estate Editor
Wegmans, the Rochester, N.Y.-based grocery chain that
has a cult-like following, will break ground Oct. 16 on its third
Massachusetts store at Northwest Park in Burlington, Mass.
The new store, to be built on Third Avenue by the Nordblom Co.,
would measure 135,000 square feet. It will feature a traditional
supermarket with one-third of the store devoted to prepared foods, with
another 15,000 square feet for a liquor department and a 300-seat cafe.
Typically, Wegmans’ stores offer 70,000 products, including 300 cheeses,
700 varieties of fruits and vegetables and 2,500 varieties of wine.
Wegmans has signed a 30 year lease with options to renew with parking
for 800 vehicles. Customers will be able to enter and exit Wegman’s
from Third Avenue, Fourth Avenue or from Network Drive via Second
Avenue.
One year ago, Wegmans opened its first Bay State store in
Northborough as the curious came by the thousands and joined
transplanted devotees who have long awaited the store's arrival in New
England. Wegmans Food Markets is an 80-store chain with markets in New
York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland and Massachusetts. It
has been named one of the “100 Best Companies to Work For” by Fortune
magazine for 15- consecutive years.
Wegmans has a smaller supermarket under construction at the Chestnut
Hill Square development on Route 9 across from The Mall at Chestnut Hill
in Newton. The chain will be unveiling a new, smaller urban concept at
this location, where it will build a 70,000-square-foot store.
This article reviews the successful implementation of 4 square in Starbucks
Square, Starbucks roll out service
Jon Swartz, USA TODAYShare
1 Comments
Square unfurled its deal with Starbucks that will put Square's small
mobile-payment devices in 7,000 of the coffee makers' USA storefronts.
9:31PM EST October 4. 2012 - SAN FRANCISCO -- Square's grand business plan just got a caffeinated jolt.
In
one of the largest mobile-payments rollouts yet, technology start-up
Square on Thursday said it has begun processing all credit card
transactions at Starbucks' more than 7,000 U.S. storefronts. Next month,
customers will be able to purchase coffee with Square's Wallet app, the
companies say.
Starbucks also said it will enable digital tipping on its mobile-payment apps and on Square Wallet in the U.S. in summer 2013.
"We think we can redefine a Starbucks customers' experience," Square CEO Jack Dorsey told USA TODAY.
Dorsey,
who invented Twitter, and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz presented the
plan at Starbucks' Leadership Conference in Houston, where more than
10,000 Starbucks store managers were in attendance.
With
Starbucks, Square -- whose app is increasingly popular among small
businesses -- for the first time is wading into mobile payments for
large multinational organizations. It plans to venture overseas next
year through Starbucks, which has 18,000 stores in 60 countries.
Eventually,
Starbucks' customers will be able to order and pay for drinks via their
smartphone before they enter a store, says Adam Brotman, chief digital
officer at Starbucks. Starbucks employees, in turn, would be able to
process orders before a customer speaks, based on the information
contained on their Square apps, he says.
"There are seismic
changes to (consumer) behavior because of technology," Schultz told
store managers in Houston. Starbucks chose Square instead of about a
dozen other tech suitors because "Jack cracked the code on customer
experience," Schultz said.
For Starbucks, which already had a
successful mobile-payments system, the partnership with Square expands
its formidable reach. Starbucks is the largest retailer accepting
mobile payments -- it handles more than 1 million mobile transactions a
week. The deal with Square lets credit card users who don't have a
Starbucks card make mobile payments at the coffee chain. (Frequent-buyer
rewards that come with Starbucks cards are not transferable to the
Square app.)
The Starbucks deal introduces Square to more
consumers and helps the overall digital market, Denee Carrington, an
analyst at Forrester Research, said in a recent report.
While
Starbucks has no immediate plans to displace cash registers with card
scanners, as Nordstrom and others do, its deal with Square does augur a
continued shift away from cash. Payments on a 'massive scale'
Square's
success has spawned competing services -- PayPal Here, NCR, Intuit and
Groupon, to mention a few -- that have crowded the market, and given
consumers one less reason to use cash.
Handicapping the
mobile-payments race, each major player has carved out a niche,
according to analysts. Square is ideal for small merchants such as
coffee shops and food trucks. PayPal Here is positioned for businesses
that have an online and offline presence. Groupon's new service will
appeal to businesses such as restaurants and spas with which it already
works. Intuit's GoPayment is designed for small and midsize businesses.
Square
is generally in "good shape," Aite Group analyst Rick Oglesby says,
because it has a head start on the competition -- and the Starbucks deal
is "huge" by putting them in front of a mainstream audience.
"No
one else has really achieved that yet, so I'd say that Square is
probably off to the best start -- but it's going to be a very long and
competitive race with more than one winner," Oglesby says.
Despite
the Starbucks deal, Square faces formidable competitors and major
hurdles to becoming a force with big retailers and corporations. "While
Square is new, it's just facilitating a 50-year-old payment mechanism —
mag-stripe cards," says Nick Holland, an analyst at market researcher
Yankee Group.
Mobile-payment transactions will surpass $171.5
billion, up 62% from $105.9 billion in 2011, says market researcher
Gartner. The ranks of mobile payment users worldwide, meanwhile, is
expected to vault 32%, to 212.2 million in 2012, from 160.5 million in
2011.
Rocky Agrawal, an analyst at reDesign Mobile, offers a
cautionary note about the massive scale of payments, and how Square
sizes up. While Square claims to process $8 billion in transactions
annually, he says, American Express processed $822 billion. Squaring up
Since
its device and app launched in 2010 as a pioneer in mobile
point-of-sale systems, Square has gained more than 2 million customers,
who typically pick up the small, white plastic device for free through
the company's website, or with a rebate from retail stores such as
Apple, Best Buy and Walmart.
Smaller businesses, such as coffee
shops and food trucks, use Square's device, which plugs into the
headphone jacks of mobile phones and tablets to perform transactions and
keep customer records.
The 400-person private company has grown
quickly by raising capital from the likes of Visa and venture-capital
firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital. Former
U.S. Treasury secretary Lawrence Summers and Schultz are among its board
members.
Last month, Square said it raised $200 million in its
latest round of funding from investors that include Starbucks, Citi
Ventures and Rizvi Traverse Management. That now values Square at $3.3
billion.
Square's device plugs into Apple and Android mobile
devices to enable smaller merchants who previously were only able to
take payments made by cash or check, to accept credit cards by swiping
them through the dongle.
Square has widened its ambitions. It
offers a merchant-finder for people to identify which businesses take
Square payments; merchants can use it as a way to manage inventory; and
there are now options to pay with Square that do not involve you
actually pulling out your card.
The Starbucks deal not only
broadens Square's audience and visibility, but it "validates" the
company's mission, Dorsey said in the interview. As a testament to
Starbucks' influence among retailers and as an early technology adopter,
Square has heard from several major retailers that now want to work
with Square. He hinted that more deals may be announced but gave no
specifics.
The pitched battle for mobile payments intensified in
August, when Square announced a new pricing model that gives merchants
the option to pay a monthly fee of $275 instead of the current 2.75% fee
on every transaction.
Merchants who make more than $10,000 per
month in business would pay less under the new pricing plan. It's all
part of a move to make it easier for consumers and merchants to eschew
cash, Dorsey says.
Pam Goodfellow, Contributor
While
shying away from using the word coupon, JC Penney’s recent delivery of a
$10 “gift” to its email newsletter recipients demonstrated that the
beleaguered department store was finally bending to what its customers have been asking for all along: a deal.
Since the commencement of its “Fair & Square” promotional strategy
in Q1 of 2012, JC Penney has been fighting a losing battle with its
dwindling customer base, trying to spoon feed shoppers everyday low
pricing like its ice cream, while in reality they were tasting [insert
your least favorite veggie here]. What did JC Penney forget? In this
economy, consumers have the upper hand with retailers.
