Just went through the great coverage of NRF’s recently concluded 99th Annual Convention & EXPO by NRF’s Stores Magazine. Good Read.

There are reports over the weekend that Procter & Gamble is opening a store of its own. While P&G termed it as a “Learning Lab” and not a direct competition to Wal-Marts of the country, if anyone is buying Tide over internet, they will likely buy it from the brand website.

P&G to Peddle Products Online

Procter & Gamble announced it will launch an online store with e-commerce services leader PFSweb, but said it is not trying to bypass the big-box retailers like Wal-Mart and Target that peddle its household and personal care brands to Internet shoppers.

"While the eStore is another online store for consumers to buy Procter &Gamble brands, [it] is first and foremost a learning lab for ecommerce innovations,' P&G spokeswoman Tressie Long told Forbes. "P&G is not a retailer, nor is the eStore an indication that we want to be," she added, noting that it is not an attempt to bypass other online merchants. "We have already been talking with our retail partners regarding the eStore and making sure they understand our goal is to develop and qualify e-commerce innovations that will mutually increase online sales for P&G and our e-retail partners."

The site will be operated and managed by PFSWeb and exclusively feature P&G products to consumers in the U.S only.

Willard Bishop recommends Four Commandments for Food Retailers in the December edition of Competitive Edge:

By most accounts, 2009 will go down as one of the most tumultuous economic times in history. In 2010, food retailers will continue to battle for shoppers, sales, and profits in what certainly will be a difficult economy marked by shaken consumer confidence and new shopping behavior. This issue of Competitive Edge will provide insight, based on our experience and exposure to national and regional retailers, on four key areas to pay attention to in 2010.

NYTimes writes on growing use of surge in the amount and type of digital data that retailers are tapping to make sense and identify patterns in the data.

"...rapid surge in the amount and types of digital data that retailers can now tap, and the improved computing tools to try to make sense of it. The data explosion spans internal sources including point-of-sale and shipment-tracking information, as well as census data and syndicated services. Companies also track online visitors to Web commerce sites, members of social networks like Facebook and browsers using smartphones.

The better tools, they say, are ever cheaper and faster computers and so-called business intelligence or analytic software for finding useful information and patterns in that data.

Retailers are increasingly mining vast troves of digital information to improve the decisions they make about pricing, shelf-stocking and product offerings. “This huge and growing ecosystem of data is an asset that some retailers are really beginning to exploit for competitive advantage,” said Thomas H. Davenport, a professor of information technology and management at Babson College. “It brings more science into the business. Relying on gut feel is yesterday’s strategy in retailing.”

IKEA has scrapped their plans of setting shops in India.  The Sweden-based Furniture giant shelved plans to foray into retail business in India until the Indian government allows 100 per cent Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in single-brand retailing in the country.

From Economic Times:

IKEA, which was hoping to invest $1 billion in India to establish a retail chain including stores in Delhi and Mumbai, was disappointed by what it perceived to be a lack of an early government action in the issue, the officials said. The investment was to flow through the single-brand FDI window and the furniture giant had hired staff for the retail venture and was preparing for a significant foray into the Indian market.
Swedish company was hoping that the government will raise the FDI limit in this segment to 100% from the existing 51%. With the government indicating that it has no immediate plans of raising the FDI limit for single-brand retail, the company has indicated that it did not want to enter the Indian market now. A number of global brands, such as Reebok and Louis Vuitton, French Connection and Jimmy Choo, are present here through the single-brand retail window.

Unilever is beginning a trial to test a new technology that lets consumers redeem digital coupons by having a supermarket cashier scan their mobile phones. Interest in Mobile coupons is growing day by day and these tests will allow Unilever to understand the use of them.

Unilever to Test Mobile Coupons - WSJ.com

The test, being conducted at a ShopRite store in Hillsborough, N.J., will include discount offers for some of the Anglo-Dutch packaged-goods company's most popular brands, including Breyers ice cream, Dove soap, Hellmann's mayonnaise and Lipton tea. Samplesaint, a Chicago mobile-technology firm, developed the system.

"This has been a Holy Grail thing that people have been trying to figure out," says Marc Shaw, director of integrated marketing at Unilever, the first major marketer to test such a service in the U.S. "I think this is on target for where consumers' heads are at right now."

To get the coupons, customers must visit the Web site Samplesaint.com, from which they can transmit the Unilever discount offers to an Internet-enabled cellphone. At checkout, the cashier scans the bar code on the phone's screen, redeeming the coupon and deleting it from the phone. The test will run for four weeks, and Mr. Shaw says he hopes to see it extended to other stores after that.

Watch Retail Speaker & Retail Consultant Jim Dion talk about 12 worst mistakes in Retail Technology and how to avoid them.

According to a recent survey from SAP (done in conjunction with British Retail Consortium), more than 51% retailers are looking at different channels to increase revenue and are moving online in a big way. Another big outcome was the fact that 54% of respondents to the survey believe that focusing on improving the customer experience will be the key driver to surviving the downturn.

Read More: Improving the customer experience is key to surviving the downturn

WSJ.com is reporting that Wal-Mart is offering businesses low-priced drugs if they sign up to buy directly from Wal-Mart's network of in-store pharmacies, rather than contracting to buy drugs through third parties known as pharmacy-benefit managers. This will heat up competition for other Pharmacies and Retailers by increasing footfall to Wal-Mart stores. And you all know what happens when you visit a store like Wal-Mart, you tend to buy lot more than what you go in for.

Apparently the Pilot companies have already seen benefit from buying directly from Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart began a trial of its program in September with heavy-equipment maker Caterpillar Co., which provides prescription coverage for 70,000 employees and their dependents. Wal-Mart negotiated a fixed markup over its cost for the drugs it sells to Caterpillar's employees under the heavy-equipment maker's in-house insurance. Though Wal-Mart doesn't reveal the costs to Caterpillar, they are verified by a third party. The markup guarantees a profit for Wal-Mart, while reducing the cost to Caterpillar.Todd Bisping, who manages Caterpillar's drug-benefits program, said the company was able to reduce its drug costs enough that it waived copayments on generic prescriptions bought from Wal-Mart.

Jeremiah Owyang has a video on how Best Buy uses social technologies internally. I agree with Jeremiah that success of Social Media hinges on how many employees really believe and are active users of all things Social. Check it out here, Video: How Best Buy Uses Social Technologies To Change Internal Culture.