Research Topic

Never Going Back: Why Black Friday will never be the same
If you’re like me, and you were curious about how Black Friday hype translated into retail sales, your head is spinning right about now. Because the flurry of post-Black Friday news reports is packed with conflicting information, data that doesn’t seem to add up, and—perhaps unsurprisingly given those disparities—wildly variant conclusions about whether the Black Friday weekend was a “success” or a “disappointment” and about what is in store for the rest of the holiday season.
Survey: CFOs confident about economy
Chicago - Nearly half of CFOs expect the U.S. economy to improve during the next six months and only 9% expect it to worsen, according to the Grant Thornton LLP 2014 Fall CFO Survey. The biannual survey reflects the insights of more than 1,000 CFOs and other senior financial executives across the United States.

Study: Customers less satisfied in Q3

Ann Arbor, Mich. – Rolling Stones fans will sympathize with the devilish problem facing American customers, who couldn’t get satisfaction in the third quarter of 2014. The national level of customer satisfaction fell 0.7% in the third quarter of 2014 to 75.6 on a 100-point scale, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), pointing to weak spending growth for the fourth quarter.
JDA Software launches innovation lab

SCOTTSDALE, Arizona - JDA Software announced the creation of JDA Labs – a research and development group assembled to drive game-changing innovation. This global team, headquartered in Montreal, will innovate new and existing products and deliver patents, best practices and entirely new products to the market. JDA Labs currently is driving research and innovation around three key areas: data science, user experience and product innovation.
ECRM: Retail circular advertising trends, November 2014

ECRM compared retail circular advertising in November 2013 vs. November 2014 and noted trends occurring across top retail chains. Home Depot added an additional Black Friday 2014 circular promoting appliances. Home Depot offered deep Black Friday 2014 discounts on microwaves. Staples increased circular pages by +38%, and featured an attractive “Free Kindle eReader with laptop purchase” and a $99 Asus laptop on the Black Friday 2014 circular front. Walgreens had little change in November circular metrics but CVS cut 9 pages; a 10% decline.
FirstData: Retail dollar volume up 5.3% Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday

Year-over-year (YOY) retail dollar volume from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday grew 5.3%, a decrease from last year’s growth of 7.4%, according to First Data 2014 SpendTrend Holiday Shopping Spend Analysis, which examined consumer spending from more than one million merchant locations over the five-day period.Similarly, retail transaction growth was 5.0% compared to 6.0% in 2013.
Five top U.S. markets for luxury retailers

New York - New York, Chicago, Las Vegas, Miami and San Francisco rank at the top of the list, reporting the highest luxury sales in per square foot, according to JLL’s “The New World of Retail Report.” But while core metro areas ranked at the top of the list of preferred locations, several emerging retail markets like Dallas, Houston and Orlando possess the attributes for longer term success driven by ongoing population and income growth.
Report: Mobile shoppers prefer Sundays

A new report looking at consumer shopping habits on mobile phones shows that Sunday is the best day of the week when it comes to sales from mobile shoppers.

"Online shopping has become a major force in global markets. And, with the holiday shopping season upon us in the United States, we see mobile's share of that market accelerating," said Larry Moores, vice president for consumer mobile reporting and analytics at Opera Software, a leading mobile internet and advertising company.
Survey: Walgreens, CVS among “Best Retailers to Work With”

NEW YORK — Chain Store age sister publication Retailing Today has released the findings of its first "Best Retailers to Work With" research report. The exclusive research report examines suppliers’ perceptions of the retail industry in areas such as innovation, collaboration, digital readiness, expectations of trading partners and reputational factors.
Cyber Monday leading online sales day Thanksgiving weekend

San Jose, Calif. - Cyber Monday (Dec. 1) saw nearly 30% more online shopping activity than any other shopping day during the 2014 Thanksgiving-to-Cyber Monday holiday timeframe. Data from SLI Systems outlining e-commerce activity across online retailers in the U.S. during the five-day period reveals that Cyber Monday at 10:00 PM EST was the peak online shopping hour. Nearly 40% of the online shopping was conducted on mobile devices. Other key findings from the study include:
Salesforce: Consumers still like email

San Francisco – Although email is at the point it’s often considered a “legacy” technology, a slight majority of consumers still prefer it for holiday communication from retailers. According to a new consumer survey from Salesforce, 53% of respondents said that email is their preferred communication channel during the holidays.
Google earns top corporate responsibility reputation

New York – Earning a reputation is not always a good thing, but in Google’s case it is a positive development. Google has received top ranking in the new Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) RepTrak Study from Reputation Index. Google beat out number two company Microsoft, which held the top spot in 2012 and 2013. Nestle exited the top 10 list this year, while Lego is the one new entrant. The full top 10 list is: 1. Google 2. Microsoft 3. Walt Disney