Multichannel Merchant

(BusinessWire) – The Rockport Company has introduced its latest line of men and women’s footwear, truWALKzero, one of the lightest shoes the company has ever designed.

truWALKzero takes cues from performance technologies with a unique sole, which incorporates flex grooves that boast amazing flexibility. As a technologically modern style, the shoes are also infused with Rockport’s proprietary truWALK Architecture, which provides a natural full range of foot motion, from shock absorption at heel strike to forefoot flexibility during push off, courtesy of adidas adiPRENE cushioning technology.

Additionally, the upper portion of the trueWALKzero shoe consists of a synthetic mesh that wicks away moisture to keep feet dry, and a padded collar and tongue to help prevent blisters and lace bruising. Not only are these shoes stylish and comfortable, they also have an EVA outsole that helps to reduce foot fatigue for all day comfort.

“We think that trueWALKzero will be one of Rockport’s blockbuster shoes for Spring 2012,” says Daniel Tschuemperlin, senior vice president of product and brand managementF. “It’s unique, compelling design as well as flexibility and lightness proposition, make it one of the most technologically advanced shoes that we have ever designed. It also emphasizes our continued commitment to creating some of the most lightweight and forward thinking shoes on the market.”

Rockport will initially launch two styles of the truWALKzero shoes for men and one style for women. The T-Toe Sport for men is a sleek, low profile, lace-up sneaker with leather/mesh uppers available in black/charcoal. The Wingtip is a dressier low profile, lace-up sneaker for men with wingtip detailing, available in black/charcoal and dark brown/orange. For women, the Welded Lace Up is a ghillie style, low profile sneaker in two colorways: black/dark gull grey/lavender, warm grey/white/salmon pink. All the styles include contrasting soles for an added color pop.

To support the truWALKzero collection at retail, Rockport will also introduce a global integrated marketing campaign in 2012 including. a consumer contest for a trip on a zero gravity flight (in the US & Canada) with a pair of trueWALKzero shoes for themselves and a guest by entering at Rockport.com, Rockport.ca, in select Rockport stores, via a QR code, a text message or email. Additionally the launch will be supported with in-store window displays, and a social media campaign. truWALKzero footwear have suggested retail values between $120 and $140, and will be found at Rockport retail stores worldwide and select mid-tier retailers, as well as through Rockport.com beginning April 2012.

About Rockport

The Rockport Company, LLC, is a leading brand within the adidas Group corporate portfolio and one of the most recognized footwear brands in the United States. Rockport has a heritage of innovation and offers stylish, comfortable footwear for men and women worldwide. The Rockport Company, LLC, was established in the United States in 1971 and is headquartered in Canton, Massachusetts. The company currently distributes footwear to more than 55 markets worldwide. For more information, visit www.rockport.com.

J. C. Penney today announced that it has begun to dramatically simplify its business model. The Company’s new approach to pricing, promotion, merchandising and the customer experience requires a more competitive operational structure, with fewer layers of management, wider spans of control and greater accountability throughout the organization, CEO Ron Johnson said in a statement.

To begin putting this framework in place, J.C. Penney is reorganizing the workforce at its headquarters in Plano, TX, where it will be taking a range of actions to realign its management structure. According to published reports, 600 positions will be eliminated in Plano, and another 300 jobs will reduced by closing its call center in Pittsburgh.

Today’s announcement is part of J.C. Penney’s plan, announced on Jan. 26, to reduce annual expenses by $900 million by the end of 2013. This includes $200 million in savings from its corporate headquarters, as well as $400 million in cost savings in store operations and $300 million in advertising expense savings.

The changes are expected to reduce expenses to below 30% of sales by the end of 2013 and position J.C. Penney to achieve an expense run rate of 27% by the completion of its transformation in 2015.

(PR Newswire) – Russell Brands, LLC, today announced the launch of a new women’s apparel collection for its Russell Athletic brand. The new line includes 18 different styles ranging from performance fleece, to hoodies, to skorts and capris, all available on their newly re-launched ecommerce site.

The line, designed by women for women, was inspired by the quintessential mom-on-the-go. Sarah Gholston, vice president, design and merchandising, said she and her design team constructed each piece in the new line with the needs of today’s modern, busy consumer in mind.

“We know that when women look good, they feel good,” she said. “Each piece in this line was created to do just that – elongating lines where they matter, flattering silhouettes, bright colors. When you combine all these elements into very functional pieces, you create what we think is the perfect go-to collection for every woman, regardless of whether she needs to run to soccer practice or run a 5k.”

Paying close attention to the details women say matter most, the collection was crafted with special attention to design. The exclusive Mid-Support Racerback Tank was developed in partnership with Vanity Fair Brands, a leading intimate apparel company, to provide the ultimate combination of comfort, support and performance as well as a fit unlike any other found in the marketplace today. Other product features in the full line include cotton with performance benefits, a not-too-tight but not-too-loose tailored fit and Dri-Power® moisture wicking technology.

About RUSSELL BRANDS, LLC

For more than 100 years, Russell Athletic, a division of Russell Brands, LLC, has supplied America’s athletes and teams with the latest innovations to help them perform at their best and is a leading supplier of team uniforms at the high school, college and professional levels. Russell Athletic’s collegiate licensed products and athletic wear are broadly distributed and marketed through department stores, sports specialty stores, retail chains and college bookstores. For more information, please visit www.RussellAthletic.com.

(BUSINESS WIRE) — 4imprint’s latest blue paper and podcast offer tools that businesses can use to create a culture of candor and transparency.

“Creating a culture of candor has been a hot topic of discussion for businesses,” Greg Ebel, vice president of sales and marketing for 4imprint, said. “This blue paper and podcast dives into what a culture of candor is all about and how to create that kind of environment in a workplace.”

By creating a culture of candor, businesses can identify weaknesses within their organization, identify solutions to problems and find growth opportunities. 4imprint has compiled research on creating transparency in business, including:

• The risks associated with controlling the flow of information.

• How a culture of candor can benefit businesses, beyond legal compliance.

• Practical steps for encouraging honesty in the workplace, as well as compassionate candor.

• How to protect truth-tellers in your organization so they feel comfortable sharing information.

• The popularity of social media, and its role in company candor.

To read this blue paper, or download the podcast, click here.

Saks Inc. announced that Michael Burgess has been named president of its Saks Direct arm effective May 7. Burgess will report to Denise Incandela, executive vice president and CMO for Saks Fifth Avenue and current president of Saks Direct.

Burgess has served as executive vice president of the consumer division of FTD at United Online since 2008, and led merchandising, marketing, consumer information technology, and several other functions of the FTD North America business segment.

Before that, Burgess was vice president and general manager of Teleflora’s Internet business from 2006 to 2008.

Though Burgess has been in the online gifts segment for the past six years, he does have experience with other business segments. Burgess has held various executive positions with Better Life Media, Selby Venture Partners, ForRetail and and Crossworlds Software, and began his business career at McKinsey & Company, where he led and served on teams providing strategic management services to several Global 500 companies in a variety of industries.

(BUSINESS WIRE) - Two-thirds of online shoppers in the U.S. have made a purchase as a result of email, nearly twice the percentage who have purchased after receiving marketing messages delivered via both Facebook and text messaging, according to study of 1,481 consumers that was released April 4 by interactive marketing provider ExactTarget.

The study found consumers’ preferences vary significantly for communications with brands and friends. 77% of consumers surveyed said they prefer to receive marketing messages via email, while only 45% prefer email for personal communications. Five percent said they prefer to receive marketing messages via social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn), while 13% prefer social media for personal communications.

Key findings of the research include:

Email

• 96% of online consumers use email at least weekly.


• 66% have made a purchase after receiving an email marketing message.


• 76% prefer email over all other channels for customer service messages.


• 66% of teens (ages 15-17) prefer email over all other channels for permission-based marketing.

Text Messaging

• 68% of online consumers use text messaging at least weekly.


• 16% have made a purchase after receiving a text (SMS) marketing message.


• 25% prefer text messaging over all other channels for real-time travel alerts.


• 9% of consumers ages 25-34 prefer text messaging over all other channels for delivery of tickets to an event purchased online.

Social Media

• 70% of online consumers use Facebook at least weekly.


• 20% use Twitter at least weekly.


• 20% have made a purchase after receiving a marketing message on Facebook.


• 32% of teens (ages 15-17) have made a purchase after receiving a marketing message on Facebook.


• 16% of teens (ages 15-17) have made a purchase after receiving a marketing message on Twitter.


• 4% prefer Facebook over all other channels for permission-based marketing.

(BUSINESSWIRE) – RichRelevance today launched RichPromo to provide state-of-the-art content targeting for retailers. This new addition to the company’s integrated personalization suite, combines real-time consumer behavior analysis with a retailer’s existing customer segments to deliver the most relevant, appealing campaign content to online shoppers. Now, retailers can optimize their valuable web real estate for overall engagement, revenue and conversions, while delivering a highly personalized and engaging shopping experience that respects consumers’ real-time behavior and past history with the brand.

“There is a tremendous tension right now between consumers’ expectations of a consistent, personalized multichannel experience and the technical reality of large retailers who are managing literally hundreds of marketing and co-marketing campaigns, thousands of segments, and millions of site visitors,” said Darren Vengroff, Chief Scientist at RichRelevance. “RichPromo cuts through the complexity to allow retailers to effectively match every shopper to the right segment and serve the most relevant campaign content - with total control, in milliseconds, and to tremendous effect.”

RichPromo combines advanced personalization technology with a user-friendly campaign management platform to deliver promotional content based on existing segments, previous shopping patterns, and real-time customer interest - at a scale of millions of site visitors. Targeted campaigns can now be created, optimized and modified without site releases or IT involvement, giving marketers and merchandisers complete control over on-site promotions, as well as strategic insight into how to improve multichannel marketing efforts.

Key capabilities include:

• Dynamic Content Targeting: RichPromo offers retailers the ability to run marketing and category specific campaigns that ensure the most relevant promotions are being shown to each shopper. By targeting promotions to shoppers according to their behavior and context within the site, RichPromo dramatically improves engagement and conversion. A highly flexible solution, RichPromo can be customized to target user segments predefined by the retailer, or by leveraging segments within the RichRelevance dashboard.

• Creative Optimization Not only can a user target campaigns to the right customer in real-time, but the campaign can also be set to dynamically optimize for the best performing creative.

• Sophisticated Workflow and Interface: RichPromo allows retailers to automate online promotion workflow, enabling marketers to target the right audience, merchandisers to coordinate products, creative teams to upload assets and business leads to oversee the whole process all through one interface.

• Campaigns Defined by Marketing Channel: RichPromo allows retailers the ability to quickly and easily develop a campaign-specific landing page that is tailored to match the creative imagery and messaging of the campaign, complete with products that are eligible for the promotion.

• Insights and Analytics: RichPromo offers detailed reports for the entire site or individual campaigns, including placement views, click-through-rate, revenue, average order value and more. Data can be easily exported for easy reporting.

RichPromo features real-time behavioral analysis and self-tuning optimization based on the best performing algorithms, a technology known as ensemble learning. RichPromo provides control over marketing campaigns in a way that is scalable for any volume of traffic and able to support peak loads (Black Friday, Cyber Monday, etc.).

About RichRelevance

Over 350 million times per day, RichRelevance is powering the personalized shopping experiences for consumers shopping the world’s largest and most innovative retail brands like Walmart, Sears, Target, Marks & Spencer and John Lewis. Founded and led by the e-commerce expert who helped pioneer personalization at Amazon.com, RichRelevance helps retailers increase sales and customer engagement by recommending the most relevant products to consumers regardless of the channel they are shopping. RichRelevance has delivered more than $5 Billion in attributable sales for its retail clients to date, and is accelerating these results with the introduction of a new form of digital advertising called Shopping Media which allows manufacturers to engage consumers where it matters most—in the digital aisles on the largest retail sites in world. RichRelevance is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in New York, Seattle, Boston and London. For more information, please visit www.richrelevance.com.

(BUSINESSWIRE) – Avangate, an ecommerce service provider, announced today the Spring Release of its SkyCommerce suite which will assist software and SaaS companies craft intentional, fully customizable, in-application and embedded shopper experiences across web apps, desktop software, mobile devices, social networks, and platforms.

As with previous versions, the Spring Release of SkyCommerce is built atop the Avangate Commerce Platform providing the only multi-channel, multi-model commerce solution that is designed specifically for small to medium-size software vendors. Some of the key elements of the SkyCommerce Spring Release include:

• Expanded API - enables software companies to monetize their software and SaaS solutions at any touch point by embedding merchandising, ordering and subscriptions management capabilities within any shopper experience while ensuring a consistent and unified set of offers, messages, and capabilities. The API can be used for everything from advanced custom shopping carts, any-platform-any-device-commerce including mobile and social, branded app stores, to single-click in-application acquisitions, cross-selling, subscription renewals and upgrades.

• myAccount 2.0 - allows software vendors to quickly and simply offer branded self-service capabilities to their customers. This empowers customers to manage their software downloads and subscriptions – whether downloading the latest version or amending, renewing, or upgrading their subscription, or even viewing their account and payment history.

• Pre-built CRM integration and shopper templates - accelerate software vendor time to market. The release unifies business reporting and customer insight via the Salesforce.com connector. Expanded order process configurability coupled with new purchasing templates and flows support improved branding and conversion.

“This latest release gives us the opportunity to highly target our cross-sell and up-sells for both new and existing clients,” said Philip Petrescu, CEO of Caphyon. “The new features will not only accelerate our launch and growth of our upcoming SaaS solutions, but also enable us to provide a well-defined, seamless ordering and support experience.”

“Software and SaaS publishers need to continuously experiment and optimize how they convert, re-convert, and retain customers within the context of the buying and using experience,” said Michael Ni, CMO/SVP, Marketing and Products for Avangate. “This Spring Release of the SkyCommerce Suite allows our customers to quickly deploy a branded, configurable shopping experience, measure and increase sales conversion rates, all supported by a comprehensive ordering API providing the flexibility to leverage the growing number of customer commerce touch points.”

About Avangate

Avangate is the agile eCommerce solutions provider trusted by Software and SaaS companies to grow their business worldwide through any channel, any model.

Specifically designed for software markets, Avangate’s scalable and integrated solution includes a full-featured, modular and secure eCommerce platform, a partner order and revenue management system, as well as a constantly expanding worldwide affiliate network.

Avangate’s market-proven eCommerce solution enables software companies to rapidly embrace industry shifts, reach customers effectively, and adopt new business models with a view to optimizing profitable revenue across online and offline channels.

(BUSINESSWIRE) — Zappos Fulfillment Centers received SHARP certification from Kentucky Occupational Safety and Health (OSH). As a subsidiary of Zappos.com, Zappos Fulfillment Centers previously earned SHARP certification in 2009. The U.S. Department of Labor created the Safety and Health Achievement Recognition Program (SHARP) to encourage and recognize excellence in occupational safety and health among small- to mid-sized employers. Zappos Fulfillment Centers employs about 2,700 workers and handles all distribution for the online retailer, from apparel to footwear. All Zappos employees embrace the company’s ten core values, which include delivering WOW through service.

To earn the SHARP certification, Kentucky OSH consultants assessed Zappos Fulfillment Centers. The evaluation included ensuring that Zappos’ illness and injury rates fell below the national averages, as well as confirming the company exceeded OSHA standards for workplace health and safety. Although companies must meet federal standards for the program, the Kentucky Labor Cabinet presents the award because the state has had its own federally approved Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) program for over 20 years.

The Shepherdsville, KY distribution facility is the 17th active SHARP’s company in Kentucky. SHARP recertification is good for two years and then can be renewed.

(BUSINESSWIRE) – Williams-Sonoma, Inc. announced today the launch of Agrarian, a new lifestyle and healthy living collection that brings homegrown and homemade into customers’ everyday lives. Agrarian offers products, resources, and inspiration for customers who want to go beyond the kitchen and begin to create a healthy awareness of where their food comes from.

Agrarian products range from heirloom seeds, live plants and raised beds to do-it-yourself cheese-making kits, chicken coops, and home canning and preserving supplies. Available in the Williams-Sonoma catalog, online and in select stores in the U.S. beginning April 5, the wide range of products provides numerous options for the culinary gardener as well as for those simply interested in healthier living.

“Agrarian is yet another way for Williams-Sonoma to bring people together around food,” said Richard Harvey, President, Williams-Sonoma brand. “We’re excited to provide our customers with a collection of products that will enrich their culinary experiences, all while helping them to lead a healthier lifestyle.”

“Families are not only eating together – they are collectively making decisions about what foods they eat and where their food comes from,” said Allison O’Connor, Vice President of Merchandising, Williams-Sonoma. “Agrarian will help families who want to embrace this healthy lifestyle.”

Items in the first Agrarian collection include cedar raised beds and planters from Farmer D based in Atlanta, slate garden markers using slate from a family owned quarry in upstate New York, Kilner persevering jars from Europe, and garden tools designed specifically for women’s hands by Sophie Conran in London. Do-it-yourself products include cheese-making, kombucha and sprout kits. There also are heirloom culinary seeds, as well as live fruit trees, organic herbs and heirloom vegetables that can be delivered to customers’ front doors, ready for planting.

ABOUT WILLIAMS-SONOMA, INC.

Williams-Sonoma, Inc. is a specialty retailer of high-quality products for the home. These products representing seven distinct merchandise strategies – Williams-Sonoma (cookware and wedding registry), Pottery Barn (furniture and bridal registry), Pottery Barn Kids (kid’s furniture and baby registry), PBteen (girls’ bedding and boys’ bedding), West Elm (modern furniture and room decor), Williams-Sonoma Home (luxury furniture and decorative accessories) and Rejuvenation (lighting and hardware) – are marketed through 576 stores, seven direct mail catalogs and six e-commerce websites.