Retail Briefs

Celebration, Fla. — Many clicks-and-bricks retailers provide real-time inventory status on their Web sites, allowing consumers to determine by ZIP Code whether a particular SKU is available in a specific store. Now Channel Intelligence, which develops services that improve the online and in-store sales process between vendors, dealers and consumers, is bringing the SKU search concept to a wider audience. Its new Product Pinpointer service, accessed at the manufacturer's site, offers real-time stock status at area stores, plus dealer phone numbers and local maps. Iomega is the first vendor to sign on, while participating retailers include Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA and Sears, covering some 2,000 retail locations. Channel Intelligence expects to add more manufacturers and dealers throughout the year.

Round Rock, Texas — Dell has teamed up with software vendors GERS, AutoGas, MSS Global and Retek to develop a standards-based point-of-sale (POS) system for medium to large retailers. The offering, which matches Dell hardware, storage and networking products and services with leading retail systems peripherals, automates such store operations as customer sales transactions, inventory management, payments, accounting, customer data and corporate communications. Dell said the streamlined approach, which links checkout lanes to corporate data centers, will help retailers manage their businesses more economically. Pricing for a POS configuration, based on existing Dell PCs, starts at $1,794.

Lombard, Ill.— The North American Retail Dealers Assn. (NARDA) will celebrate its 60th anniversary this year by promoting organ and tissue donation awareness and funding. Its 60th Anniversary Gift of Life campaign, whose major promotional period is running now through April, is designed to encourage retailers, buying groups, manufacturers and customers to sign up as organ and tissue donors, while building store traffic and good will in dealers' communities. NARDA is providing retailers with campaign kits that include donor sign-up cards, a news release, ad specialties and a contact with the local organ and tissue donor network. More than 80,000 Americans are on waiting lists for organs, while a donation of a liver saved the life of NARDA chairman Robert Cremer's granddaughter. A special NARDA event is planned at the Kitchen/Bath Industry Show (K/BIS) this April to honor industry leaders, celebrate the group's anniversary and raise funds for organ and tissue donation.