Retail

Los Angeles – Newegg has filed an opposition to Soverain Software's petition for the Supreme Court to review a January 2013 ruling by the Federal Court of Appeals in the Eastern District of Texas that found Newegg and other e-commerce retailers did not violate a patent on e-commerce shopping cart technology held by Soverain. In district court actions in the Eastern District of Texas, Soverain had obtained settlements and won jury verdicts estimated at more than $70 million.

Minneapolis -- Target Corp. admitted Friday that “strongly encrypted PIN data” was removed during the hacking that compromised some 40 million credit- and debit-card accounts between Nov. 27 and Dec. 15. The retailer said it remains “confident” that customers’ PIN numbers are safe and secure.

New York -- Online discount retailer Overstock.com plans to let shoppers pay with the digital currency Bitcoin starting in June, according to The New York Times.

The report said the retailer is reviewing several third-party firms that facilitate Bitcoin transactions, and that it hopes to have one place by mid-January.

If the plan is carried out, Overstock will be the most prominent retailer to accept Bitcoin as a form of payment.

New York -- Zappos took the top spot in a ranking of fastest holiday shippers according to a study by Kurt Salmon and StellaService. The study analyzed shipping times for orders placed on Cyber Monday from more than 50 retailers across a broad range of retail sectors, from big boxes to online-only players. It found that retailers in the top-five delivered multi-unit orders in an average of 2.9 days.

The top five companies for holiday shipping are the following:

New York – Eight of the 25 largest retailers (32%, or roughly one-in-three) failed to deliver at least one package ordered on the cutoff date to arrive before Christmas via standard shipping in a study performed by StellaService. The study involved placing three orders, one each in the East, West and Midwest regions, from each retailer.

Of 75 total orders, 12% missed the delivery estimate. All but one of these orders were shipped using UPS, which is the preferred carrier for most of the top 25 retailers. Some retailer-specific results include:

Reston, Va. -- Several retail subcategories were among the top-gaining in November as Thanksgiving kicked off the holiday shopping season. According to comScore Media Metrix analysis of U.S., desktop activity in November 2013, the retail categories of toys, consumer electronics, jewelry/luxury goods/accessories, department stores, mall, and fragrances/cosmetics all were among the top 10 gaining desktop site categories in November.

Campbell Soup Company begins 2014 with two new executives in key roles as it looks to drive sales in Asia and increase marketing effectiveness in the United States following a difficult first quarter.

Purchase, N.Y. – U.S. retail sales reportedly rose 3.5% between Nov. 1 and Dec. 24, 2013 compared to the same period in the prior year. According to data from MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse, sales of holiday-related categories, such as clothing, electronics and luxury goods, rose 2.3%, after rising 0.7% in 2012.