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Williams-Sonoma is looking to appeal to its increasingly digital-savvy customers with the launch of a free recipe tool for smartphones. The retailer, in collaboration with Weldon Owen Publishing, a division of Bonnier Corp., and Culinate Inc., has released the Williams-Sonoma Recipe of the Day app on Apple's App Store. The app delivers a seasonally appropriate recipe every day of the year, from a selection of Williams-Sonoma's starters, salads, sides, soups, main dishes and desserts. 

Federal regulators have given Amazon.com a green light to begin testing drones, but it will most likely take years before the online retailer can start delivering packages from the air to peoples' homes. The Federal Aviation Administration on Thursday gave Amazon permission to conduct test flights of its drones outdoors, as long as the company obeys a host of rules like flying below 400 feet and only during daylight hours. The company's drones for now will have to be operated by a pilot with a certificate to fly a private manned aircraft.

Someday soon, buying items online may require you to smile before paying, no matter how high the price. At least, this is where Alibaba Group Holdings Inc.'s new technology seeks to lead us. Earlier this week, Alibaba Founder and Chairman Jack Ma unveiled the company's "Smile to Pay" system, which will allow users to confirm their identity by face-recognition technology rather than with passwords or other digital tokens. Ma showed off the new system in a presentation at the opening of the CeBit technology conference in Hanover, Germany.

Meijer is turning a past headache at the checkout lanes into a $10 coupon that customers can use Friday or Saturday. The coupon is good for $10 off a $50 purchase on grocery, health and beauty items or general merchandise. Frank J. Guglielmi, senior director of communications for the Grand Rapids, Mich.-based retailer, said an outage affected the retailer's ability to process credit cards. He noted it was an internal IT issue. The glitch in late February disrupted the point-of-sale system at stores for debit and credit card purchases.

If Howard Schultz and Starbucks' management team didn't already know, they certainly do now: no good deed, or attempt at one, goes unpunished. The company has been widely criticized for a campaign it's launched to get Americans speaking about the controversial topic of race. Earlier this week, baristas at the chain's stores began writing "Race Together" on cups. The company also placed full-page ads in The New York Times and USA Today and announced it would partner with USA Today to publish supplements on the topic.

J.Crew failed at women's fashion last year, the company's chief executive admitted on Wednesday. CEO Mickey Drexler provided a candid assessment of what he described as a "lousy year" for J.Crew's women's business in a rare appearance on a conference call with analysts, after overall sales at the brand remained stagnant at around $621 million. "Fashion is guaranteed never to always be right," said Drexler, a veteran retail merchant famed for steering apparel giant Gap through its rise in the 1990s. "That's the only guarantee in my many years of doing this." 

Target has agreed to pay $10 million in a proposed settlement of a class-action lawsuit related to its 2013 data breach that consumers say compromised their personal financial information, court documents show. Under the proposal, which requires federal court approval, Target will deposit the settlement amount into an interest-bearing escrow account, to pay individual victims up to $10,000 in damages. The proposal also requires Target to adopt and implement data security measures such as appointing a chief information security officer and maintaining a written information security program.

American shoppers have never been able to earn loyalty points from one retailer and then redeem them at another. That's about to change. In May, Macy's, Rite Aid, ExxonMobil and four other brands plan to introduce the first U.S.-based loyalty program that encompasses an entire team of retailers. The program, called Plenti, will be operated by American Express. For example, a Macy's customer will be able to use Plenti points won from, say, buying a pair of shoes at one of its stores to fill up at a Mobil gas station or to pay an AT&T phone bill.

J.C. Penney's chief marketing officer Deb Berman has resigned. She joined Plano, Texas-based Penney in August 2013 from Kraft Foods Group where she was vice president of marketing strategy and engagement. Penney said in a statement Tuesday that Berman's departure was her decision. "J.C. Penney is grateful for her service, and we wish her well in all future endeavors," the company said. Berman was part of CEO Mike Ullman's rebuilding team after the company lost a lot of high-level talent during former CEO Ron Johnson's attempt to remake the department store in 2011, 2012 and 2013.

At the 2015 Mobile Marketing Association Forum in New York, Victor Bayata, head of mobile solutions at Ikea, revealed that focusing locally and selling through Instagram are key to the retailer's mobile strategy. During the "Why Does Major Big-Box Marketer IKEA Need an App?" session, Bayata explained that the furniture retailer focuses on what's important for each demographic on a local level but also keeps in mind that anything mobile is instantly on a global level. This was displayed when the United States division of Ikea sold merchandise through its Instagram page.