Budgets/Spending/Market Size

Plano, Texas – It will not be a happy New Year for employees of some 40 J.C. Penney stores. The company on Thursday said that it plans to close approximately 40 stores, which represent less than 4% of its total store base, on or about April 4, 2015. The closures will affect about 2,250 employees.

It was a happy holiday from a sales standpoint at Steinmart with the company reporting a 5.8 percent same store sales increase for December.

The 5.8 percent comp increase for the December period ended Jan. 3 follows a 4.8 percent gain in November and a 4.5 percent increase during the prior December.

Reston, Va. -- Retail e-commerce spending from desktop computers for the entire November-December 2014 holiday season totaled $53.3 billion, up 15% from the corresponding days last year.

Americans’ appetite for e-commerce grew again in 2014 with holiday sales slightly exceeding an optimistic forecast by digital measurement firm comScore.

Total desktop online sales for the entire November through December holiday season advanced 15 percent to $53.3 billion, comScore said. Cyber Monday retained its crown as the highest volume day with e-commerce spending of more than $2 billion.

Washington, D.C. – The holidays were at least moderately happy for in-store retailers. According to the Applied Predictive Technologies (APT) Index, in-store sales for the 2014 holiday shopping season were up 0.7% although sales decreased on Black Friday and Super Saturday weekends.

The number of transactions: actually declined 0.4%, but this was more than offset by a 1.1% increase in average purchase amount. Black Friday weekend retail sales were down -3.5%, while Super Saturday weekend retail sales were down -1.7%.

New York -- For the second consecutive year, security ranks as the top spending priority of CIOs in an annual survey by PiperJaffray, with 75% of respondents expecting to increase spending in 2015, up from 50% last year.  

The results reflect Network (firewall) and endpoint security were the top two segments of the market expected to see an increase in spending.

Washington, D.C. – Restaurant operators continued to hold a sunny outlook even as the weather turned gray in November. The Restaurant Performance Index (RPI) – a monthly composite index that tracks the health of and outlook for the U.S. restaurant industry – stood at 102.1 in November, down slightly from its October level of 102.8.

New York -- The minimum wage rose in 20 U.S. states and in the District of Columbia on Jan. 1.

The increase brings the total number of states with a minimum wage above the federal wage floor to 29, according to the New York Times. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.

Nine states are increasing their minimum wage levels through automatic adjustments for cost-of-living expenses and other economic factors. Increases in the other states occurred through legislative or ballot changes.