Consumer Attitudes & Behavior

In a little over three years as a public company, Facebook may now be worth more than Walmart.

The question is, will the social network's surge last?

According to Quartz, over the last year, Facebook’s stock has jumped roughly 30% as the broader S&P 500 has barely managed to keep its head above water. The climb has added more than $65 billion to Facebook’s market value, bringing it to more than $236 billion, just above Walmart’s $235 billion.

Walnut Creek, Calif. – Retailers are increasingly placing a high value on competitive price intelligence.

A new survey of 123 retailers from RSR Research co-sponsored by 360pi, “Pricing 2015,” indicates 59% of respondents reported competitive price intelligence as very valuable.

The survey also shows that competitive price intelligence was cited as the top intent for change at 34% of “retail winners” and 50% of “retail laggards.” Additional takeaways include:

New York -- Women have a real investment hiding in their closets, according to a survey by Alliance Data’s Card Services business, which manages store-brand credit card programs for retailers.

One-fourth of survey respondents indicated the total value of the items in their closet to be from $1,000 to $2,499, and 17% valued the contents between $5,000 and $9,999.  

Somerville, Mass. – Almost all (91%) of marketers either use or intend to use personalization for online customer interactions within the next year. According to a new survey from real-time personalization provider Evergage, nearly one in two marketers surveyed (49%) intends to increase their budgets for personalization in the year ahead, with 80% planning to increase them significantly (by more than 10%).

New York — Gap stores have failed to keep up with the fashion tastes of millennial shoppers, who have a much different fashion sense than the generation before them, according to the Washington Post. Read the full story here.

Generation Y prefers to shop at Walmart over Target, Costco, Kroger, Whole Foods, and Trader Joe’s, according to Ad Age.

"Millennials now, as a generation, like Walmart the best, more so than Generation X, more so than boomers," Matt Kistler, Walmart’s senior VP-consumer insights and analytics, said.

Walmart is most popular among people under 24, as well as every store but Target among 25- to 34-year-olds, according to InfoScout, a provider of shopper insights with a nationwide panel of more than 170,000 shoppers.

Staples has empowered young students to help create and design school products that solve real-life problems.

Through a unique initiative created by Staples Inc. called Designed by Students. kids have made: a colorful all-in-one writing instrument with interchangeable writing tips. A portable desk that lets students work anywhere. A floating locker shelf that maximizes and stylizes lockers.

Liberal economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and Bloomberg financial columnist Barry Ritholz weighed in this week with points of view on Walmart’s recent investment in wages and other changes to improve worker satisfaction.

Both took shots at the company by revisiting some of the negative characterizations of how Walmart treats workers that have been repeated so often they have taken on a life of their own.

Krugman offer a more technical view on the company’s actions while Ritholz took more of a snarky approach.