Pricing

We're nearly a year into Ron Johnson's tenure as CEO of J.C. Penney, and the results aren't encouraging. The retailer's share price has fallen more than 10 percent under the former Apple and Target executive, and now, a new report from BIGinsight suggests that female shoppers are fleeing the retailer in droves.

In the latest effort to beat Amazon.com at its game, Target says that for the first time it will match prices that consumers find on identical products at select online competitors this holiday season. Target's CEO Gregg Steinhafel told about 80 reporters at a company media conference Tuesday that the retailers include Amazon, Walmart.com, Bestbuy.com, Toysrus.com and babiesrus.com. Target's bold price match program will run from Nov. 1 through Dec. 16.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Best Buy is planning to match prices on many items offered by Amazon.com and other online retailers during the holiday shopping season. The move appears to be part of a larger effort from Best Buy to crack down on the number of consumers who scope out products in brick-and-mortar stores and then buy them more cheaply online, a trend known as showrooming. In addition to the expanded price match policy, Best Buy is also said to be introducing free home delivery for products that aren't in stock in stores.

Michaels Stores, the arts and crafts retailer, launched an online holiday planning tool this past July designed to take the stress out of holiday gift-giving for users as well as reward them and get them more engaged with the brand. The loyalty campaign, dubbed "Make Your Joy," was designed and executed using a multichannel promotion and loyalty platform from ePrize and will last through the holiday season.

Low prices: That's what's going to get registers ringing this holiday season at Kohl's, which is clawing its way out of a business slump. So said Kevin Mansell, CEO of the 1,134-unit department store chain, at Goldman Sachs' retail conference on Thursday. His comments come a day after the CFO of competitor Target delivered the opposite message at the investor conference, vowing not to partake in the price wars during the Christmas shopping season.

In the first half of fiscal 2012, J.C. Penney's sales dropped 21.3 percent, or $1.7 billion. At an investor conference today, the company's chief financial officer indicated that the rest of the year will be consistent with that of the first half, or another 20 percent. This is in harmony with my forecast published here on Aug. 1. At this pace, the drop will total over $3 billion for the full year. While earnings will also be lower, the company reiterated its view that cash will build to $1 billion at year-end.

eBay is launching a new local deals feature similar to Groupon, LivingSocial and Google Offers called Lifestyle Deals. The page of local deals on the eBay Lifestyle Deals homepage links to eBay listings from the new eBay seller "signpostoffers," which is a player in the local deals space.

For the second year in a row, Wal-Mart Stores, the nation's largest retailer, will offer a layaway program for holiday purchases. Echoing Wal-Mart executives’ comments last week that American consumers are still worried about their finances, the company also said it would add an extra month to the program so shoppers have more time — and paychecks — to pay for their items on layaway. "Our customer was saying if they had two more paycheck cycles, that really would be helpful for them," said Duncan MacNaughton, chief merchandising and marketing officer for Wal-Mart U.S.

This week's top article (determined by number of clicks) deals with a theme most retailers are smack in the middle of: back-to-school season. Peter Albers of Ohana Companies analyzes how retailers can use promotions to drive back-to-school sales in his guest bylined article. The article delves into detail on three specific promotional strategies — rebates, promotional games and referrals. What's your company doing or planning to do to drive sales during the all-important back-to-school season? Are you using promotions, social campaigns, mobile contests? What have you done in the past that's been successful (or not)? Go to Retail Online Integration's Twitter page and use the hashtag #ROIMostClicked to give us your thoughts. We'd love to hear from you!   

What do you think about J.C. Penney's decision to move away from its six-month-old everyday low pricing model? And how do you handle pricing? Do you think sales are the way to go or are you a fan of the everyday low pricing model? We're trying to get to the bottom of this issue via our new "Question of the Week" discussion over on on Retail Online Integration's Facebook page. We would love to hear from you and get a dialog going on this important retail subject.