Winter Holidays

A 3.7% same store sales increase during the holidays has JCPenney feeling good about the continued growth of its business.

The retailer said same store sales during the nine week period from November through December increase 3.7%. That figure was on top of a 3.1% gain during the same period the prior year and was toward the high end of the company’s guidance range which envisioned comp growth of two percent to four percent.

New York -- Closing out the 2014 holiday shopping season, Internet retail traffic soared to new heights during the first weekend in January, according to Verizon Enterprise Solutions’ Retail Index.

The Index measures average daily traffic and peak volumes, with both variables used an index with a baseline value of 100. The Index was 130 on Friday (Jan. 2), 134 on Saturday (Jan. 3) and 137 points on Sunday (Jan 4).

San Francisco, Calif. - Apple accounted for 51% of the new device activations worldwide during the week leading up to and including Christmas Day (Dec. 19 - 25). According to data from mobile analytics provider Flurry, Christmas Day typically sees the highest number of new device activations and app installs each year, with 2014 following the trend.

Armonk, N.Y. – It was a very happy holiday for online and mobile retailers in 2014. According to IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark data for the 2014 holiday period (Nov. 1 - Dec. 31), online sales surged, as did mobile sales and traffic.

Online sales were up 13.9% from the same period in 2013. Mobile traffic accounted for 45% of all online traffic for the 2014 holiday season, an increase of 25.5% year-over-year. Mobile sales accounted for 22.6% of all online sales for the 2014 holiday season, an increase of 27.2% year-over-year.

By Greg Van den Heuvel, Pitney Bowes Software

Black Friday traditionally marks the first day of the holiday shopping season. During the most recent holiday season, millions of Americans have participated in the shopping frenzy, which according to CMO.com, accounts for nearly 40% of all annual sales. Black Friday weekend alone accounted for 133 million American shoppers, diving deep into discounts, hoping to land the best deal and get a head start on their holiday shopping.

As part of its ongoing strategy to drive sustainability innovation, Staples will be giving away $25,000 in new tech products to 10 “eco-focused” schools in Canada in 2015.

Publicly funded schools that are focused on the environment are invited to enter the contest atStaples.ca/PowerEco and share their eco initiatives for a chance to win. The Staples Superpower your School Contest runs through Jan. 31.

Retailers set more online sales records this holiday season and that means UPS will be busy in early January.

UPS is projecting its highest volume for return activity will be Jan. 6 when the carrier expects consumers will ship more than 800,000 packages back to retailers and merchants. By the end of the first full week of January, return volume is expected to total roughly four million packages.

Camp Hill, Penn. - Rite Aid is ringing in the New Year by offering members of its wellness+ loyalty program the opportunity to receive lifestyle and entertainment rewards for every $50 spent in stores on participating products through Jan. 24. To participate in a promotion Rite Aid is calling “Happy You Year,” members of the wellness+ loyalty program can look for the red "Buy & Earn" symbol on store shelves. 

Lebanon, Tenn. – Cracker Barrel Old Country Store is taking a decidedly new-fangled approach to promotion. The casual dining chain has enlisted Nashville-based advertising agency Redpepper to create a holiday-themed social marketing campaign.   The promotion targets a younger, more social demographic with Facebook posts. Some posts in the campaign have received more than 10,000 interactions.

Reston, Va. -  Although full results aren’t in yet, holiday e-commerce sales in 2014 look like a healthy improvement from 2013. According to data from comScore, for the holiday season Nov. 1 through Dec. 21, $48.3 billion has been spent online, marking a 15% increase from the corresponding days the previous year.