Dan Berthiaume

NEW YORK – Global importer B2X is targeting small-to-mid-sized retail enterprises with a new online trading platform designed to streamline the process of sourcing products from China. The platform was announced Feb. 17 at the 2008 Toy Fair in New York. “Sourcing from China is a paper-intensive, heavily regulated process,” said Joe Sorisi, CEO of […]

Smart Circle International, which offers referral marketing services and direct-to-consumer sales, is making its Smart Circle cards available in digital format. The company announced the digital version of its consumer value card Feb. 20. Thomas Cornelius, vice president of business development for Smart Circle, said participating retailers will be able to redeem promotional offers by […]

Avexxis, which offers technology and services aimed at multichannel retailers, is releasing a new suite of offerings designed to broaden the capabilities it offers. Announced Feb. 11, the new suite consists of a Web store, off-the-shelf base solution, and two infrastructure options. “The industry has evolved from direct mail to e-commerce,” said Avexxis Corporation Principal […]

Last year, I had the privilege of editing a book called “Fresh Customer Service” by Michael D. Brown, a motivational speaker and career coach with extensive experience as a frontline retail employee and executive. Brown bases his customer service theory on the radical notion that by putting the customer second and the frontline employee first, […]

JDA Software Group is set to roll out this quarter a new forecasting algorithm that will address slow and erratic items for its E3 replenishment suite. David Johnston, JDA’s senior vice president of manufacturing and wholesale distribution, said the algorithm, announced Feb. 13, will solve the challenges many companies face in using traditional methods to […]

Mercado will soon release a new merchandising suite for online retailers. The vendor unveiled Mercado Ignition at eTail West Feb. 11 and officials plan to release it in April. “We are launching a storefront that will enable retailers to expose merchandising features they will need much better,” said Kevin Lindsay, director of marketing for Mercado. […]

BSG Clearing Solutions, which makes transaction processing and credit card gateway solutions and services, announced Feb. 12 that it is deploying the value-added Card Identification System to help card-not-present online retailers detect prepaid and gift card fraud. “We look at the transaction, all its history and data elements,” said David Guerin, BSG’s vice president of […]

Epicor Software is trying to become a market leader in the specialty retail segment through its Feb. 7 purchase of NSB Retail Systems. By adding merchandising and marketing technologies from NSB and store and corporate systems from the previously acquired CRS Retail Systems to its existing enterprise platform, Epicor officials intend to offer specialty and […]

With RedPrairie’s Feb. 5 release of its Routing Portal application, the demand management solutions vendor is applying Web-based collaboration to the management of inbound and reverse logistics. The software is intended to provide Web-based visibility into inbound shipment information, such as status, due date of arrival and contents. “Typically, requests for inbound shipment news have […]

StoreNext Retail Technologies, a subsidiary of Retailix USA, announced Feb. 4 that it will offer the U-Scan Genesis self-checkout solution from Fujitsu Transaction Solutions to its customers, who are predominantly small independent and regional grocery chains. U-Scan Genesis features include Fujitsu TeamPoS terminals, two-handed scanning, user interfaces that support up to 12 languages and high-performance […]