Budgets/Spending/Market Size

Hoffman Estates, Ill. – A $400 million loan Eddie Lampert, the CEO and largest shareholder of Sears Holdings Corp., is making to Sears this month reportedly is only enough to last the struggling retailer for three months. According to Bloomberg, global ratings agency Fitch Ratings is projecting that Sears will need $4 billion in capital to avoid running out of cash altogether in 2016.

Philadelphia -- Nearly one-quarter (24%) of retailers expect a significant increase (5% or more) in year-over-year sales during the 2014 holiday season, while another 70% are predicting sales will be on par with the 2013 season, according to a survey by global management consultancy Hay Group.

New York -- Seasonal hiring in the retail sector is expected to outpace 2013, according to a report by Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Retailers are projected to hire more than 800,000 seasonal workers for the upcoming holiday season, the highest number since 1999. In 2013, the retail industry hired 786,200 seasonal workers.

Research Triangle Park, N.C. -- Forty-one percent of online retailers plan to offer free shipping and returns as a strategy to increase holiday sales this year, according to a new survey by Channel Advisors, and free shipping also ranked as the most successful service feature for generating a higher level of customer satisfaction. The Multichannel E-Commerce Study also reveals that 86% of surveyed retailers expect to increase their year-over-year online holiday sales in 2014.

New research from an organization called the Luxury Institute found that half the executives in a recent survey are spending at least 30% of their marketing budget on digital methods with an even larger percentage concerned it isn’t enough.

New York - India, China, and Malaysia are the top-ranked offshoring destinations. According to the 2014 Global Services Location Index (GSLI) from A.T. Kearney, India, China, and Malaysia remain the top three offshoring destinations, and Asia continues to dominate, with six of its countries among the top 10.

E-commerce as a segment of the total retail market is growing at 30% per year and will reach $2 trillion in sales in 2015, according to e-commerce platform Bigcommerce.

Based on research conducted across its more than 55,000 clients, and combined with third-party research from Sagence, Bigcommerce’s Democratization of E-commerce Report also predicts that the U.S. small and medium business ecommerce market will exceed $100 billion in total sales in 2015.

Atlanta - Overall retail spending growth in August 2014 was the strongest in more than a year. According to the First Data SpendTrend report, retail dollar volume growth reached 2.8% in August (compared to 2.6% in July), as back-to-school shopping propelled spending growth in several retail categories. (SpendTrend tracks same-store point-of-sale data by credit, signature debit, PIN debit, EBT, closed-loop prepaid cards and checks from nearly 4 million merchants locations serviced by First Data in the United States.)

Washington, D.C. --  August retail sales – excluding automobiles, gasoline stations and restaurants – increased 0.5% seasonally adjusted month-to-month and 2.7% unadjusted year-over-year, according to the National Retail Federation. When combined with revisions to July, August sales indicate a consistent improvement in consumer confidence and spending.

Overall retail spending growth in August 2014 was the strongest in more than a year, according to the First Data SpendTrend report.

Retail dollar volume growth reached 2.8% in August — compared to 2.6% in July — as back-to-school shopping propelled spending growth in several retail categories.