Consumer Attitudes & Behavior

OTTAWA, Ontario — PlaSmart Inc., the Ottawa-based global toy distributor, announced that its brainteaser game PerplexusTM Epic was named the 2013 Game of the Year last night by the Toy Industry Association.

The Toy of The Year (TOTY) award is the latest accolade earned by PerplexusTM Epic, which also received the PTPA (Parent Tested Parent Approved) Media Seal of Approval, among others.

Total U.S. Shopper Traffic in Retail Stores and Malls for January 2013

Retailers pushed to extend the high level of holiday shopping and foot traffic by promoting post-holiday specials and markdowns on seasonal merchandise in January. However, as expected, shopper traffic continued to drop off significantly after the end of the holiday season. 

CHICAGO — Most Valentine's Day celebrants plan to shop a week or less before the holiday, and many wait until Feb. 13 or 14 to make their final purchases, according to research by the NPD Group, a leading global information company.

Philadelphia -- A post-holiday e-commerce report released Friday by technology company Monetate said that, on Christmas Day 2012, 16% of all e-commerce traffic came from smartphones and 15.6% came from tablets, a marked upswing from a year earlier when just 6.4% came from smartphones and 8% from tablets.

New York -- A report released Thursday by the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries and the International Council of Shopping Centers said that the U.S. shopping center industry’s net operating income for the fourth quarter continued to show a strong gain nationally, rising 4.3% year-over-year.  

Total operating income of all U.S. shopping centers on a square foot basis rose 3.6% over the year-ago period.

For all of 2012, the U.S. shopping-center industry posted a 3.6% rise in NOI.

Traffic trends at Walmart and other major retailers declined in December even though e-commerce sales set new records in the fourth quarter and throughout 2012.

In case you missed it, one of America’s biggest and most iconic brands was in the news recently for something other than the latest sales figures: Wal-Mart announced an ambitious plan to hire approximately 100,000 veterans over the next five years.

Reston, Va. -- A report released Thursday by comScore found that retail e-commerce sales in the U.S. rose to $186.2 billion in 2012, an increase of 15% and the strongest annual growth rate since before the recession.

Fourth quarter 2012 sales grew 14% year-over-year to $56.8 billion, marking the first-ever $50 billion quarter. It also represents the 13th consecutive quarter of positive year-over-year growth and ninth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth.