Pricing

Today's world is a transparent one. Shoppers can search for price information while in-store and find another price locally or order online — all with nothing more than a smartphone and the appropriate app. Clearly competing on price, while only partially effective 20 years ago, is an exercise in futility today.

Want to know what deals retailers offer most? Curious where on a retailer’s website you can find these deals? SteelHouse’s latest infographic takes a look inside retailer deals, discounts, offers and more.

dressbarn has launched "Share your (MOM)ent," a social and interactive campaign for Mother's Day. Consumers are encouraged to upload their (MOM)ent — a photo, video or written memory of anyone who has ever given them a warm and fuzzy mom-like feeling — and to share it with others via social networks and a customizable e-card. Additionally, consumers can vote on (MOM)ents shared by others. Ten winners will be selected from the top 50 entries with the most votes and will each receive a spa day for two.

Price trumps sales and special deals, customer service, and convenience as a factor in deciding where to shop for the majority of U.S. consumers, according to The NPD Group, a leading market research company.

Gift card sales are expected to reach $100 billion in 2012, but after years of being a win-win for retailers, consumers are starting to take back the gift card power thanks to a highly profitable market: gift card resale.

Amid increased competition online to win shoppers’ discerning budgets, several midtier retailers have signed up with an online startup Netotiate (which it said means negotiate over the net) to allow shoppers to negotiate merchandise prices with them online.

Being fair and being loyal aren't the same thing. But can one engender the other? The question hit me when reviewing J.C. Penney's annual report, which reveals its new pricing strategy, Fair and Square, could produce a fair number of zeros in the coming months — i.e., declining sales. As coupons, price cuts and other discounts have essentially trained consumers not to pay full price (and to wonder what the full price on anything really is), the retailer walked away from the madness. Fair and Square, it said: everyday low pricing, with just two sales a month on out-of-season wares.

Staples has awarded five small businesses $50,000 in free advertising and cash as part of its “Give Your Small Business the Push It Needs” contest. Selected from hundreds of video entries submitted on Staples’ Facebook page, each of the five small businesses will receive a total of $50,000 in local cable television advertising and cash in their home market.

Structural nuances can mean the difference between a successful gift card program and a very successful program. Accordingly, I've identified six gift card management approaches that work well as long as they correspond to what retailers seek to achieve from their respective gift card programs:

According to research conducted for Coupons.com, a growing number of consumers are seeking out and using digital coupons. These same consumers, it turns out, are highly educated, affluent and big shoppers. According to the research conducted by GfK Knowledge Networks, digital coupon users make 69 shopping trips per year compared to 57 for the average shopper; spend $55.05 per trip vs. $44.87 for those not using digital coupons; and plan to go shopping within two days of either printing out a coupon from a site such as Coupons.com or downloading the offer to a loyalty card.