C.H. Robinson Europe has opened an office in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, specializing in temperature-controlled logistics services.

The majority of consumers in the world's richest markets say they are feeling insecure and anxious and are struggling to save. They have tightened their belts and are buckled in for a sustained period of low or no income growth - a world that feels like the 1930s or the Lost Decade in Japan.

At the end of this month, 211 million Ikea catalogs will be sent off into the world. If one lands on your doorstep, you'll want to have your smartphone handy.

On July 17, a wide range of third-party products on Amazon showed special pricing: one cent. The pricing glitch was, yet again, caused by some third-party integration and a coding error.

In releasing its first mid-year global outlook, D+B suggests that the second half of the yer will be challenging, but there will be an overall climate of improving U.S. and global business health.

The worldwide market for warehouse management systems grew by more than 10 percent in 2011. Growth was broad-based, occurring in both emerging markets and mature market segments. The high growth in the mature market segments implies that the post-recession market rebound is still active. "Going forward, we expect longer-term user adoption and technology trends to drive growth within the WMS market, as the effects from pent-up demand from the preceding global economic recession diminish. Emerging markets, add-on functionality, and numerous end-user industries are expected to lead the charge," says Clint Reiser, enterprise software analyst and the principal author of ARC's "Warehouse Management Systems Worldwide Outlook."

In 2011, the business analytics market extended its post-2009 recovery with another stellar performance by growing worldwide revenues 14.1 percent year over year. International Data Corporation forecasts that it will continue to grow at a 9.8 percent compound annual growth rate through 2016 to reach $50.7bn. Helping to drive this growth is media attention focused on Big Data, putting broader business analytics on the agenda of more senior executives.

Zepol Corporation, a trade intelligence company, reports that U.S. import shipment volume for June, measured in TEUs, was down 3.7 percent from May, but is up 4.4 percent from June 2011. Similarly, Q2 of 2012 has topped last year at this time by 4.7 percent. Although there was a drop from last month, June had the second-highest TEU imports so far this year, outdoing January by a slight 1 percent. Last year saw a comparable trend in the summer months with a moderate dip in June, but spikes in July and August.

When rain doesn't fall in Iowa, it's not just Des Moines that starts fretting. Food buyers from Addis Ababa to Beijing all are touched by the fate of the corn crop in the U.S., the world's breadbasket in an era when crop shortages mean riots.

Carrier Transicold has developed new transport refrigeration units and generator sets, to comply with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards for diesel emissions, which take effect in 2013.