Appliances

Merrillville, Ind. - Homeowners looking to upgrade their backyard in time for summer can now enter membership-based buying club DirectBuy’s “Backyard Dream-Over” sweepstakes for a chance to win outdoor furniture, appliances, and more. DirectBuy is utilizing gamification techniques by letting consumers play a game on mobile phone, PC or tablet for a chance to win up to 600 sweepstakes entries while learning about DirectBuy.

Minneapolis – Technology lovers who fall in love have a new online wedding registry option. On Feb. 16, Best Buy Co. Inc. will launch the Best Buy Wedding Registry.

Couples can create and manage their registry online or through the Best Buy mobile app. By early April, in-store kiosks in all Best Buy locations will help registrants and gift-givers view and print wedding registry lists. Couples will also have the option of syncing their registry with MyRegistry.com and TheKnot.com.

Port Washington, N.Y. - Consumers spent more than $47 billion on small appliances, non-electric housewares products, and home fashions in 2014. According to The NPD Group, this was a nearly $500 million, or 1%, increase from 2013 home-product sales,

NPD Group data also shows this continued the growth trajectory resumed in 2013, when the industry grew by 4%. Sales of small kitchen appliances, bed, and bath home fashions products buoyed the industry in 2014, while most non-electric housewares continued to struggle.

Best Buy is finally joining the growing online gift registry market by offering wedding registry services.   More than 1.5 million couples register for wedding gifts each year. Options for these couples soon will improve with the Feb. 16 launch of the Best Buy Wedding Registry, enabling couples everywhere to register for their most-wanted tech essentials:  from wireless speakers to cameras and from Ultra HD TVs to ever-popular kitchen gadgets.  

Minneapolis -- The Tile Shop has expanded its presence in the Tampa, Florida market, opening a location at the Dale Mabry Shopping Center in Tampa, and another at in Brandon.

The new locations join the growing family of Tile Shop stores in Florida, including a location in Jacksonville and an Orlando location to open this spring.

Framingham, Mass. – Staples is offering ambient alerts for its home and office automation platform Staples Connect. The alerts provide audio and visual notifications outside of the Staples Connect app and through compatible devices in the home or office.

E-commerce sales at HHgregg surged during what was an otherwise unhappy holiday season that saw sales fall 6 percent and the company's share price tumble after it withdrew a 2015 profit forecast.

For the third quarter, the company estimated net sales of $666 million, a decrease of approximately 6% as compared to the prior year quarter. Same store sales for the third quarter decreased approximately 6%, with the appliance category relatively flat. However, the company estimated that its e-commerce sales were up approximately 59% for the third quarter.

ECRM compared retail circular advertising in November 2013 vs. November 2014 and noted trends occurring across top retail chains. Home Depot added an additional Black Friday 2014 circular promoting appliances. Home Depot offered deep Black Friday 2014 discounts on microwaves. Staples increased circular pages by +38%, and featured an attractive “Free Kindle eReader with laptop purchase” and a $99 Asus laptop on the Black Friday 2014 circular front. Walgreens had little change in November circular metrics but CVS cut 9 pages; a 10% decline.

CONSHOHOCKEN, Pa. - Ikea plans to increase the solar array atop its store that opened eight years ago in Canton, Michigan. In September, IKEA began work on a 44,000-sq.-ft. expansion to the store, atop which new panels will be installed beginning spring 2015, with a completion by summer.

SAN BRUNO, Calif.- It was a very busy Monday—Cyber Monday to be more specific— for Walmart. The discounter said  that Cyber Monday 2014 (Dec. 1) was the biggest online day in its history for orders. Customers viewed more than 1.5 billion pages on Walmart.com between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday.