Consumer Attitudes & Behavior

Retailers who sell Nestle candy may soon be hearing a lot from their customers about changes in the taste or color of their favorite confections.

That’s because Nestlé has pledged to remove all artificial flavors and colors from its chocolate and sweets in the United States.

Chicago – Customer reviews are now an expectation, not an option, for e-commerce sites. According to a study analyzing the impact of user-generated content on consumer purchase behavior from ratings and reviews provider PowerReviews, consumers will abandon a site if it doesn’t provide the information they need.

Armonk, N.Y. - Consumers headed online for their Valentine’s Day shopping this year. According to IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark data, during Valentine’s week (Feb. 7 – 13) online shopping rose 10.2% from the same period in 2014.

In addition to overall sales, consumers ramped up their shopping efforts the week leading up to Valentine’s Day. Growth was seen in key verticals including:

New York – A majority of business websites are not ready for prime time, at least when it comes to global commerce.

According to a new survey from multilingual search agency Oban Digital, while 67% of business executive respondents say that internationalization is a key part of their growth strategy, only 20% of businesses have all of their current online communications adapted for local culture or language, a key driver of sales success.

Chicago -- Retail CFOs predict a 3.9% increase in total sales and a 3.7% increase in same-store sales in 2015, according to a new BDO USA survey.

While the forecast is about one percentage point lower than 2014’s bullish projections, 66% of retailers expect comparable store sales to increase, and with 71% of retailers including online sales in their comparable store sales reports, a considerable amount of this 2015 growth may come from further e-commerce sales, which grew 16% in 2014, according to eMarketer.

The Walmart Foundation is funding a three-year initiative to identify new ways in which the non-profit, public and private sectors can better work together to serve veterans. 

The $1 million initiative is called Welcome Home North Carolina, and it will operate under the guidance of the Institute for Veterans and Military Families, a New York-based organization that solves issues facing former service personnel and their families. Among the institute’s responsibilities will be distributing the $1 million.

There’s a reason why so many shoppers love Wegman’s. A Valentine’s Day promotion spotted the day before the holiday in a Buffalo-area store featured twin ribeye steaks, packaged ready-for-the-flame in a disposable, heart-shaped broiler pan.

Rhonda Mauldin was selected from more than 1,100 Food Lion store managers for the retailer’s highest honor.

Mauldin, who is the store manager of the Food Lion located at 1004 W. Georgia Road in Simpsonville, S.C., is Food Lion’s 2014 Store Manager of the Year.