JCPenney has reversed its "Fair and Square Pricing" concept of a year ago, which slashed prices across the board and did away with sales. In its place, the retailer is bringing back — you guessed it — sales.

JCPenney will again offer "targeted discounts at certain times throughout the year," as it did in the past, according to Reuters. The U. S. retailer will also post signs on the majority of its merchandise, showing shoppers the amount of money they're saving on items purchased at Penney.

To some extent, the reversal rebuffs the efforts of chief executive Ron Johnson, formerly of Apple and Target, who joined JCPenney in late 2011.

Last year at about this time, Johnson outlined ambitious plans to turn the 110-year old company into a modern day low-priced retailer better able to compete with the likes of Target and Walmart. The store updated its logo for the third time in three years, announced partnerships with designers and fashion brands, tapped Ellen DeGeneres to be its brand ambassador, and (most portentously) did away with merchandise sales.Continue reading...

Target is taking "online only" to a new level.

Last week, the retail giant hosted the Target Everyday Show, an interactive event on Twitter leveraging its tongue-in-chic “Everyday Collection” TV campaign by creating a virtual runway show that drew on people’s tweets about everyday products submitted via hashtag. 

Calling the event its Tweet-to-Runway Show, Target chose its favorite tweets by fans to be featured on its YouTube channel and on a microsite, EverydayShow.com. 

Witty tweets won the day, including “Why does my chocolate milk taste like bananas?” as one tweet chic model asked to the camera. “Monday, you saucy minx you. Coffee me,” cited another.Continue reading...

Amazon reported weaker-than-expected sales and earnings for the fourth quarter on Tuesday.

But investors quickly seemed to give the online-retailing giant a pass — partly because they figured the results reflected general economic reality, and partly because Amazon continues to be an unrivaled, trailblazing juggernaut that keeps all its competitors on their toes.

Revenue jumped 22 percent during the quarter to more than $21 billion, but fell short of analysts' expectations of more than $22 billion. And Amazon's profits were just $97 million during the period, compared with $177 million a year earlier.Continue reading...

Domino's has a history of leading the pizza-delivery business, starting with its 30-minute guarantee many years ago. More recently, the brand has overhauled its recipe, its marketing and other essentials of its business model in an effort to stay ahead of the pack that also includes hard-charging Papa Johns and other worthy competitors.

So it's little surprise that Domino's has kicked off the new year looking for a way to press an advantage in another important area of the pizza business: online ordering, which now facilitates one-third of its U.S. orders. Wooing even more customers into online ordering is crucial in the first quarter, when TV viewing of college-football bowls, NFL playoff games, NCAA basketball and March Madness spurs pizza orders.

Domino's has just launched a limited-time campaign featuring a new "currency": Domino's Dollars. Customers who order two medium two-topping pizzas for $5.99 each via digital ordering — online, mobile or via phone apps — will receive $5 in the new Domino's Dollars that they can use toward their next online order within 10 days of receipt.Continue reading...

As the holidays are fast upon us, the brightest creative-commerce minds are devising promotions, deals and give-aways to snare the 2012 shopper wherever and whenever he or she may be.

The U.S. National Retail Foundation estimates that Holiday 2012 shoppers will spend $750 per family (up less than 1% from last year), with shopping smarter particularly important for higher-priced tech items that one-third of the population is focused on as lead gifts.

New research from Accenture shows a shift in consumer purchasing behavior and use of shopping channels, specifically online, regarding personalization vs. privacy, digital vs. in-store shopping and the rise of “showrooming.”Continue reading...

Market research shows that e-tailing in India is growing faster than any other Asia Pacific market, which sets the stage for Citi's new campaign in the market: promoting web-based transactions and online shopping to consumers.

Citibank India will host its first ever 24-hour deep discount online promotion — billed as the OMG! Sale, short for Online Mega Sale — on Wednesday (Dec. 5), offering cardholders deals across categories from 17 e-tailers including indiatimes.com, ebay.in, snapdeal.com, indiaplaza.com, zoomin.com, yebhi.com, zovi.com, excluzen.com, highstreetlabels.com, goibibo.com, babyoye.com, firstcry.com, hoopos.com, indiangiftsportal.com, goodlife.com, pepperfry.com and myntra.com. 

The single-day online sale event offers discounts averaging around 30% and extending up to 60% on certain products and services.Continue reading...

We won’t know for sure until tomorrow, but according to the IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark, “all signs point to Cyber Monday being a banner year for retailers, marketers and CMOs. With sales up 24.1 percent over 2011, the multiscreen shopper is out in full force this year.”

Black Friday in-store sales were undercut by Thanksgiving Early Bird sales, as well as mobile and web e-commerce, and according to the Wall Street Journal, "Total spending for the weekend reached an estimated $59.1 billion, a 13% increase from a year ago, according to the National Retail Federation...A consumer survey conducted for the trade association by BIGinsight found that shoppers spent an average of $423 over the weekend, up 6% from $398 last Thanksgiving weekend."

Sales projections for today, re-christened ‘Mobile Monday,’ will be further fueled by smartphones leveraging a plethora of apps. "Our findings reinforce that mobile is not just another channel," Chia Chen, mobile practice leader for Digitas, told Mobile Commerce Daily. "It's a technology-driven cultural phenomenon that is changing how people are connecting to brands and commerce.” Continue reading...

The so-called "Grey Thursday" pre-Black Friday rush didn't seem to stop Walmart from having its best Black Friday ever. So how did it all play out over the weekend, and as Cyber Monday morphs into Mobile Monday?

According to the Wall Street Journal, "Total spending for the weekend reached an estimated $59.1 billion, a 13% increase from a year ago, according to the National Retail Federation. Last year the group said sales rose 16% over the weekend. A consumer survey conducted for the trade association by BIGinsight found that shoppers spent an average of $423 over the weekend, up 6% from $398 last Thanksgiving weekend."

As noted by Reuters, comScore estimated that "Black Friday sales during the 24 hours of November 23 passed $1 billion ($1.042 billion) in online sales for the first time, making it the heaviest online spending day to date in 2012 (with 57 million shoppers visiting e-commerce sites) and a 26-percent increase versus Black Friday 2011. Thanksgiving Day (November 22), while traditionally a lighter day for online holiday spending, achieved a strong 32-percent increase to $633 million."

According to IBM's Black Friday 2012 report, US shoppers once again took advantage of early promotions this holiday season, driving a 17.4 percent increase in online sales Thanksgiving Day. This increase set the stage for 20.7 percent growth on Black Friday. Online sales on Black Friday increased 21% over last year, IBM estimated by analyzing data from 500 retailers, including 50 of the 100 largest web retailers. The biggest surge came from mobile consumers, with sales reaching 16.3 percent, led by the iPad. Other takeaways by IBM:Continue reading...