Despite the shortest shopping season since 2002, Adobe Systems predicts record growth for online sales on Thanksgiving with $1.1bn and Black Friday with $1.6bn, increases of 21 and 17 percent, respectively.
As retailers rush to get their online holiday offers out early, many are missing out on a major selling tool that drives web shoppers to buy: free shipping.
Staples, reportedly the world's second-largest internet retailer, has completed the acquisition of Runa, a California software company that helps online retailers increase sales by personalizing the shopping experience.
How close is Amazon to same-day delivery for most U.S. customers? Maybe not as close as we thought. While a report in May said that by the end of 2013 Amazon will have a distribution center within five miles of most major U.S. cities, a new calculation by supply-chain consultant Marc Wulfraat suggests Amazon has a lot farther to go before it can even reach 20 percent of U.S. shoppers.
Betting that consumers are willing to pay for instant gratification, Canada Post is teaming up with Wal-Mart Canada Corp., Best Buy Canada Ltd., and Indigo Books & Music Inc. in the first major Canadian rollout of same-day online shopping.
Dick Boer, the chief executive officer of Ahold, which has 3,000 stores, mostly supermarkets, across Europe and the United States, says the internet has vastly changed retail and the grocery business.
After some 19 years of struggling with e-commerce, Walmart is once again learning that managing a merged channel retail strategy is almost never going to beat a well-run pure play e-tailer like Amazon when it comes to online sales.
Some of the largest U.S. and U.K. retailers are slow to adapt their store operations to changing consumer buying habits, according to a study by SD Retail Consulting, a retail advisory firm and unit of Hilco Trading, LLC. Surprisingly, the study found that 80 percent of retailers surveyed are not effectively training their in-store staff to accommodate the complex needs of the new multichannel shopper.
The study surveyed Retail Operations Leaders from 35 leading retailers including Department Store, Specialty Retail, Big Box, Grocery and Convenience Store chains, mostly with revenues of over $1bn (50 percent of which are publicly traded).
Release of the second UPS Pulse of the Online Shopper: A Customer Experience Study analyzes omnichannel retailing and shows consumers want more choices when it comes to shopping online, more control over when their purchases will be delivered and a convenient returns process. They're also using social media to shop for the best deals and expect more shipping options from e-tailers.
According to figures released by the U.S. Department of Commerce, retail sales exceeded expectations despite headwinds caused by extreme weather in the Northeast and a continued adjustment to higher payroll taxes.
