Apple, Inc.

Oakville, Ontario – Customers at participating Tim Horton’s stores throughout Canada and the U.S. using BlackBerry 10 smartphones will be able to register a Tim Card on the TimmyMe mobile app and use NFC tap-to-pay technology to complete their order. Future development plans will also see this platform expanded to Android 4.4 devices.

San Francisco -- Retail in the coming year will be more streamlined and integrated with online experiences, according to predictions from POS software provider Revel Systems.

In 2014, Revel Systems predicts the following industry advancements will begin to take shape:

Amazon.com is the most popular U.S. online retail site when it comes to having Web content shared on Pinterest in the run up to Christmas 2013.

In a study of 10 top US retail sites, images and pages from Amazon.com are being shared most frequently on Pinterest, with Walmart and Apple taking second and third positions, respectively. According to a study conducted by digital marketing software and services specialist Searchmetrics, content from Amazon.com currently generates 16,360 pins per week, Walmart generates 5,778 pins per week and Apple generates 3,871.

Boston -- Target was the most-browsed mobile app/site in 2013, and Apple’s mobile app/site is where consumers purchase the most, according to a new study from Mobiquity.

By Brett Conradt, [email protected]

Target was the most-browsed mobile app/site in 2013, and Apple’s mobile app/site is where consumers purchase the most, according to a new study from Mobiquity.

We are all susceptible to media hype, and to established narratives, so it’s easy to miss important details in the growing chaos and chatter that surrounds Black Friday each year. We see big crowds and big bargains and a holiday shopping event that used to be a day now morphing into a brick-and-mortar and online extravaganza that lasts more than a week. That said, we should be asking what is really going on behind the scenes — and behind the numbers — and what does that mean for retailers for the rest of the holiday shopping season?

New York -- When compared with a baseline shopping period of mid-October of this year, total mobile visits on Thanksgiving and Black Friday increased 93%. Data from multichannel platform provider Usablenet also shows that overall mobile transactions increased 219% and total revenue from mobile transactions increased by 368%.

In addition, average order value increased by 56.3%, conversion rates increased by 93%, and shoppers spent an average of 47 seconds longer on site (the average length of visit was just more than six minutes per site).

There were more than 1 billion page views on Walmart.com from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, which the retailer said made for record sales.

Walmart said Cyber Monday 2013 was the biggest online sales day in its history and that the five-day period from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday was the highest five-day stretch in online sales to date, but stopped short of disclosing actual sales results.

Chicago -- A majority (88%) of retailers are using social media as part of their 2013 holiday marketing blitz. But they still remain divided about mobile marketing, with only 38% using it this year, down from 50% in 2012.