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Lowe's is engaging the services of Microsoft to help improve its customer service. The company has agreed to implement Microsoft Office 365 across more than 1,745 stores, 200,000 employees and its corporate offices in the United States, Canada and Mexico. Office 365 will help the home improvement retailer improve customer service by providing collaboration tools to increase communication among its stores and employees. "Office 365 is another tool we're using to help redefine customers’ home improvement experiences," said Paul Ramsay, senior vice president of IT solutions at Lowe's. 

The National Retail Federation (NRF) released the following statement from its President and CEO Matthew Shay on the Supreme Court's decision on the Affordable Care Act: "As the voice of retailers of all types and sizes, we're disappointed by today's ruling. The Court missed an opportunity to redress the many shortcomings of the law. As it stands, the law wrongly focuses more on penalizing employers and the private sector than reducing health costs. For these reasons, NRF has been a consistent skeptic of the Affordable Care Act."

MINNEAPOLIS — Target has donated $30,000 in monetary support and product to assist with Colorado wildfire relief efforts. A $17,500 cash donation was distributed among several American Red Cross chapters in Colorado in addition to $5,000 in product donations for essentials such as water and food. A separate donation of $7,500 in gift cards was given to other nonprofit organizations in the affected areas. “We take seriously our responsibility as a retailer, employer and community member to aid in times of need,” said Gregg Steinhafel, chairman, president and CEO of Target. “Before and after a crisis, communities can count

Despite reporting an uptick in organized retail crime, the National Retail Federation (NRF) revealed that retail theft rates decreased in 2011, according to preliminary results of the organization's latest National Retail Security survey. The results, which were presented at the NRF's Loss Prevention Conference and Expo in New Orleans, revealed that retail shrinkage — a loss of inventory due to employee theft, shoplifting, paperwork errors or supplier fraud — decreased to 1.41 percent of retail sales in 2011 ($34.5 billion), down from 1.49 percent in 2010 ($37.1 billion). 

Downers Grove, Ill. -- Survey results released Wednesday by CompTIA, the non-profit association for the IT industry, found that innovations in information technology continue to transform the retail sector, with digital signage, payment processing, customer engagement and other solutions playing increasingly important functions. Seventy-two percent of retailers surveyed rate technology as important to their business, CompTIA's Retail Sector Technology Adoption Trends Study revealed. That figure projects to increase to 83% by 2014. Sixty-three percent of retailers expect to increase IT spending in 2012. Large retailers expect to boost IT spending the most – 4.8%. For all firms, the

Los Angeles -- TruConnect Mobile announced that Walmart is now the exclusive provider of its prepaid mobile broadband service Internet on the Go, powered by the MiFi 2200 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot. The service plan has no monthly fee and the data balance never expires (if used once a year). “In today’s world of high connectivity, we want to make connecting to the Internet more accessible and affordable for our customers,” said Seong Ohm, senior VP and general merchandise manager for entertainment, Walmart U.S. “By providing an assortment of mobile broadband products at a low price our customers can now

Japanese clothing brand Uniqlo recently took over Pinterest to promote its new line of shirts. Teaming up with creative agency FirstBorn, Uniqlo utilized the power of Pinterest’s scrolling to create giant animated blocks that were featured in key Pinterest categories – men’s apparel, women’s apparel, geek, fitness and sports. The agency used hundreds of shell accounts on Pinterest to pin images simultaneously for the Uniqlo Dry Mesh Project campaign. Pinterest users scrolled through to see images of Dry T-shirts on colorful mosaics.

In an open letter and ad campaign, Equal Exchange, an importer of coffee and other commodities, is asking Green Mountain Coffee Roasters to leave Fair Trade USA, a certification organization. Equal Exchange, a Massachusetts-based importer of "fair trade" coffee, cocoa and other commodities, has taken out two full-page ads in Vermont's largest daily newspaper, the Burlington Free Press, taking local hero Green Mountain Coffee Roasters to the woodshed. At issue is what constitutes "fair trade."

Best Buy founder Richard Schulze is exploring taking the world’s largest electronics retailer private as he considers options that include selling his stake, according to a person familiar with the matter. Schulze, who has a 20 percent shareholding in the Richfield, Minn.-based company, is working with Credit Suisse Group AG on his plans, said the person, who asked not to be identified. The 71-year-old said in May he would step down as chairman after an internal probe found he failed to tell the board about allegations that then-CEO Brian Dunn was having an inappropriate relationship with a female employee.