Research Topic

More Americans now say they are loosening the purse strings in advance of the holiday season, and fewer say they are tightening their belts, according to a recent Citi national survey.

Only 35% said they would be spending less than last year, reflecting the lowest level of holiday budget cutbacks since the financial crisis. As many as 63% of Americans plan to spend more (11%) or the same (52%) on holiday shopping this year.

Retailers were well represented on the 2013 edition of a best and worst CEOs list compiled by a business professor at a leading university.

Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos topped the list of best CEOs, compiled by Sydney Finkelstein, associate dean for executive education and the Steven Roth professor of management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. Making the list of worst CEOs were former J.C. Penney CEO Ron Johnson and current Sears Holdings chairman and CEO Eddie Lampert.

It promises to be a mad dash to the finish for the nation’s retailers this week with half of holiday shoppers planning to wrap up their holiday shopping online and nearly one third of shoppers yet to begin spending, according to the latest survey results from the National Retail Federation.

Washington, D.C. -- The average holiday shopper had completed half (49.9%) of their shopping, slightly less than the 56.5% they’d completed by this time last year, boding well for retailers who are preparing for a very big holiday shopping weekend, according to the National Retail Federation’s latest holiday survey conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics. Specifically, 32 million or 14% say they have not even started, while another 20 million, or 8.9%  say they are already finished.

Eight-in-10 (77%) consumers would be willing to share their smartphone location data as long as they received enough value in return.

A new study from in-store mobile marketing platform provider Swirl also revealed that consumers are much more likely to entrust their location information to their favorite retailers (65%) than to shopping/deals apps, Google or Facebook.

Los Angeles — Retail real estate showed the strongest growth in capital values and rents of all property types globally in the third quarter of 2013, according to CBRE Group, Inc.

Houston — Exceptional job growth, population gains and improved retail fundamentals have significantly elevated the sales prices for shopping centers in Texas over the last year, according to Deal Sikes & Associates, a Houston-based real estate valuation and counseling firm.

Some retail properties have increased in value more than 20 percent in 2013, compared to last year, added Matthew Deal, principal at Deal Sikes & Associates.

New York -- MasterCard plans to expand its world headquarters in Purchase, N.Y.,  suburbs and open a technology lab in Manhattan, the Associated Press reported.

The report said that MasterCard is investing several million dollars to open a new mobile e-commerce technology lab in New York City, which will lead to 122 new research and development and software jobs in Manhattan.

Retailers usually measure 
the success of project spending by ROI, or "return on investment." ROI measures how many dollars you get back for every dollar you invest. This is a prudent and necessary way of justifying investment in things like IT systems, facilities and processes.

But not everything of value can be measured by simple dollars and cents. How do you measure the return on hope given to hundreds of thousands of disadvantaged children, both in the United States and around the world?

Bridgeview, Ill. -- Rose Paving Company, a provider of complete parking lot management solutions to commercial and industrial properties nationwide, announced it  raised $7,000 during its year-long, multi-event fundraising campaign benefiting St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The donation, presented to St. Jude in December, will help support the lifesaving mission of one of the world’s premier pediatric cancer research centers.