eCommerce

Minneapolis --The competition for the holiday shopper continues with the news that Target Corp. is kicking off the holiday season extra early this year, with plans to offer early access to Black Friday deals for one-day only on Nov. 10, a pre-sale on Nov. 26, and a 6 p.m. store opening on Thanksgiving evening.

Aventura, Fla. -- In another move to capitalize on its extensive real estate portfolio, Sears Holdings Corp. has submitted plans to the City of Aventura in Florida for the redevelopment of the Sears property at Aventura Mall into an open-air village that will feature retail, restaurants, offices and a hotel.

 

New York --  Chinese E-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holdings sold about $2 billion worth of goods on its websites within approximately the first hour of its annual shopping extravaganza.    This is the sixth year Alibaba has celebrated Singles Day, or 11.11 (named after the date, 11/11), a 24-hour deep-discount festival designed to boost sales during an otherwise weak period in China's sales calendar.   

San Jose, Calif. –- EBay is launching a collaboration with artist and illustrator Mario Wagner to create an interactive art installation in New York City. Titled Art For All, the installation celebrates the recent launch of EBay’s new live auctions experience, which makes a selection of art and collectibles from auction houses around the world available on EBay.   

San Francisco –- Gap Inc. reported declining net and same-store sales for the third quarter and October 2014. For the third quarter Gap’s net sales were $3.97 billion, down 2.5% from $3.98 billion for the third quarter the prior year.  

Phoenix, Ariz. -- Net income at Sprouts Farmers Market Inc. soared 79% to $26.1 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2014 from $14.6 million in the same quarter a year earlier. A reduction in pretax losses helped boost net income growth.  

New Albany, Ohio –- Abercrombie & Fitch reported net sales of $911.4 million for the third quarter of fiscal 2014, less than Wall Street forecast, down 12% from $1.03 billion in the year-ago period. The chain cited slowing mall traffic and weaker results in the latter part of the quarter.   

By John M. Pierre, Linguastat    The single greatest challenge that retailers face today is to have an individualized “conversation” with each customer and to do so on a global scale. Consumers expect a similar personalized experience regardless of channel, from the marketing offers they receive to the products that appear in search results.