Despite common misconceptions that the chain is a discounter targeting low-income shoppers, the reality is that Lidl is positioned in the middle of the market. Its business model is reminiscent of another German grocer; Aldi carries almost 100 percent private label products, though, while some 30 percent of Lidl’s products are national brands.

Pieology is working with mobile rewards platform Punchh to stay in touch with customers and learn from them. The restaurant marketing cloud allows clients to engage customers across multiple channels, predict their behavior and boost sales through tailored campaigns.

A virtual try-on trend is sweeping the makeup industry, to the cheers of makeup artists: 81 percent said they would like to be able to offer clients a preview of a makeup look before applying it. Previews could play a role in reducing product returns as well, cited by 42 percent of counter makeup artists as the most frequent issue encountered.

Gentle Harvest, the brainchild of a Cisco Systems co-founder, offers organic and locally sourced food in Marshall, Va. What sets the restaurant apart is its supplier network, cultivated by the founders, which will eventually allow expansion into surrounding states.

The digital edition of STORES includes must-read pieces, including the articles featured here. Read the current issue and browse the archives for issues you may have missed.

STORES Magazine Editor Susan Reda has been covering retail stories for decades, and has seen the industry through challenging times as well as glory days. On this week’s episode of Retail Gets Real, Reda discusses the future of the industry and breaks down the list of this year’s top retailers.

As technology and evolving consumer behavior continue to transform retail, innovation leaders, CIOs, chief marketing officers and chief digital officers are faced with the challenge of working together to drive innovation across an entire organization. NRF spoke to technology entrepreneur, leadership advisor and NRFtech speaker Michael Anderson to learn more about approaches to leadership in times of change.

If you want to be a great negotiator, stop trying to get people to say “yes.” So says Chris Voss, who spent 24 years with the FBI Crisis Negotiation Unit and is now CEO of The Black Swan Group and author of “Never Split the Difference.” Speaking to an audience of retail security executives at the NRF PROTECT Loss Prevention Conference this week, Voss outlined a key problem with the way most approach negotiation — the addiction to hearing yes.

Amazon’s third annual Prime Day will be Tuesday, July 11, with hundreds of thousands of deals exclusively for Prime members around the world. New this year, members can enjoy 30 hours of deal shopping starting at 9 p.m. ET on Monday, July 10 — and new deals as often as every five minutes.

Alipay has signed an agreement with Han Feng Group, the leading food supplier for Chinese restaurants and supermarkets in the United States, to further expand its reach to the Chinese consumer in the U.S. The agreement calls for a pilot program to begin in the New York and North Carolina markets and roll out to empower Han Feng’s 14,000 restaurants and supermarkets.

Staples Inc. and private equity firm Sycamore Partners have entered into a merger agreement in which investment funds managed by Sycamore Partners will acquire the company in a transaction that values Staples at an equity value of approximately $6.9 billion.

Provision Interactive Technologies Inc., a subsidiary of Provision Holding Inc., announced a multi-year partnership agreement with Discount Drug Mart Inc. to install Provision’s proprietary 3D Savings Center kiosks inside Discount Drug Mart stores.

1-800-FLOWERS.COM has extended its relationship into 2018 with Veritone One as its exclusive agency for radio and podcast advertising to ensure speed, transparency and accuracy of broadcast advertising spends.

TVPage, the first video content management system that empowers merchants to source, publish and monetize video experiences, has joined the Shopify Plus Technology Partner Program to deliver shoppable video commerce experiences to Shopify Plus merchants.

BTM Global, a premier provider of retail system integration and development services, announced that Red Wing Shoe Company is live with Oracle Retail Xstore Point-of-Service and EMV across its hundreds of retail stores, outlets, distributors, independent retailers and mobile stores.