eBay, Inc.

Minneapolis – Target Corp. enjoyed many digital returns during the 2014 holiday season, as the retailer broke seasonal digital sales records. Target.com sales on the all-important Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping days were up 40% from 2013.

San Jose, Calif. – eBay is acquiring Shutl, a London-based same-day e-commerce delivery company with North American headquarters in San Francisco, for an undisclosed sum. Through the purchase, eBay hopes to establish its one-hour eBay Now delivery service in 25 cities in the U.S., and U.K., by the end of 2014.

eBay has introduced a set of new features that make browsing and buying on the site a more personalized experience. The company is also accelerating its efforts in local commerce and plans to extend its eBay Now delivery service to 25 markets by the end of 2014, including Chicago.

What a difference 30, 20 or even 10 years make when it comes to consumer behavior. Thirty years ago, “24x7 shopping” meant mail-order catalogs. Smartphones, tablets and social media were barely part of the discussion 10 years ago. While observers attribute the rapid pace of change to technological advances, biology may play an equally important role. Scientists have observed that the human brain is incredibly plastic, even in adulthood, constantly adapting to trauma and environmental shifts.

The retail world is seeing significant shifts in consumer expectations and behaviors. Today’s online shoppers have higher expectations than ever before.

San Jose, Calif. -- Retailers are cautiously optimistic about the 2013 holiday season, with 60% forecasting revenue growth in excess of 10%, in line with industry forecasts, according to a survey by Baynote, a provider of personalized customer experience solutions.

In the 18 months since I joined the National Retail Federation, I’ve been struck repeatedly by how rapidly our industry continues to evolve. As we all know, retail has always changed and adapted — and in just the past 20 years we’ve advanced from then-radical game changer Amazon.com to more recent models like Hointer, which boasts what amounts to online shopping in a store. 

With 4,000 U.S. stores serving as product depots, same day delivery holds great potential for a retailer with an unrivaled retail footprint, assuming a strategy can be developed to profitably unlock the opportunity.

Walmart has experimented with same day delivery on the west coast where order are fulfilled from stores and a broader rollout of the service would seem inevitable at some point in the future given online shoppers desire for immediate gratification.