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A department store and a beauty specialty retailer have the best momentum in social media going into the holiday season. Meanwhile, an online giant is losing steam.

Consumers are making more e-commerce transactions, and smartphones are helping to drive growth.

According to the new Q3 2015 Performance Index report from e-commerce technology platform MarketLive, e-commerce sales continue to improve across all retailer categories (apparel, beauty, home furnishings, catalog, brick-and-mortar, and brand-direct), and across all major performance metrics. These include revenues (+13.5%), traffic (+19.8%), and average order value (+3.9% to $158).

It’s not quite a “dislike” button, but Facebook is expanding how users can respond to posts.

According to TechCrunch, Facebook is testing “Reactions,” a set of six emoji that expand upon the “Like” button, in Ireland and Spain.

New York -- Construction has just started on Facebook’s new data center, but the massive facility already has its own Facebook page.

The world’s largest social network announced that construction has started on its fifth data center, which will be powered by wind. The new center is located in Fort Worth, Texas, and joins Facebook’s four existing data hubs in Oregon, Iowa, North Carolina, and Sweden.

In a little over three years as a public company, Facebook may now be worth more than Walmart.

The question is, will the social network's surge last?

According to Quartz, over the last year, Facebook’s stock has jumped roughly 30% as the broader S&P 500 has barely managed to keep its head above water. The climb has added more than $65 billion to Facebook’s market value, bringing it to more than $236 billion, just above Walmart’s $235 billion.

The nationwide expansion of the Facebook Place Tips in-store mobile promotion service, complete with free proprietary Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons, was interesting news.  Here are three implications of Facebook’s latest effort to serve as a commercial platform:

Ottawa, Canada – The Shopify e-commerce platform is expanding a beta test of the Facebook “buy” button with select U.S. retailers, by invite only. Facebook began piloting the buy button, which lets desktop or mobile consumers click the “buy” call-to-action button on ads and page posts to purchase a product directly from a business, without leaving Facebook, in July 2014.

Armonk, N.Y. -- IBM and Facebook on Wednesday announced they are teaming up to help retailers and other brands provide more personalization in their marketing efforts on the social network.

The two companies said they are now working together to integrate Facebook’s existing ad technologies, such as Custom Audiences, into IBM’s array of tools and services for retailers.

New York -- Upscale footwear brand Stuart Weitzman has launched its first Instagram-based advertising campaign. The online campaign features Cinemagraps, which animates a portion of a photo so that it looks like a video. It was done in collaboration with Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg of Ann Street Studio.

As retailers try varying ways to attract the interest of shoppers, Stuart Weitzman is launching a totally new kind of digital campaign.

The retailer says it is the first company in the apparel industry to launch what is called a "cinemagraph advertising campaign" on Instagram. Cinemagraphs — still photographs incorporating looping video elements — are increasingly popular as retailers experiment with new visual tricks and gimmicks designed to make consumers stop and take notice.