eCommerce

Eight-in-10 (80.6%) shoppers will purchase gift cards this holiday season, according to the National Retail Federation’s Gift Card Spending Survey conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics.

Holiday shoppers will spend an average of $163.16 on gift cards, up 4.0% over the $156.86 they spent last year and the highest amount in the survey’s 11-year history. Total spending on gift cards will reach $29.8 billion.

New York -- Macy's reported a profit for the third quarter that easily exceeded Wall Street, helped by stepped up marketing.

For the quarter ended Nov. 2, Macy's earned $177 million, up from $145 million a year ago.

Revenue rose 3% to $6.28 billion. Same-store sales increased 3.5%, beating the 2.1% rise analysts expected.

Sales trends improved in every region, and both the Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s chains performed well, the retailer said.

A tepid economic climate and government shutdown weren’t enough to prevent Macy’s from producing a 3.5% third quarter same store sale increase and better than expected profits which prompted the department store operator to reiterate it full year financial forecast.

Goodlettsville, Tenn. -- Dollar General Corporation announced the resignations of Raj Agrawal and Adrian Jones as members of its board of directors effective Dec. 5. Agrawal, a member of KKR & Co. (LP), and Jones, a managing director at Goldman, Sachs & Co., have served as directors of Dollar General since 2007.

By Lynn Hinderaker, [email protected]

The future is knocking on the door of hedge fund manager and owner of Sears, Eddie Lampert. His decision to split off Lands’ End and Sears Auto Center from the core Sears brand would have been a good decision in 2004, one year after he purchased the deteriorating retail brand. Today, given the monumental shift in online purchasing behavior that has changed all of retailing, Lampert’s move is akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

New York -- In the first 10 months of 2013, e-commerce sales are up 17% from the same period last year, according to the Visa Spending Intentions survey. To-date in 2013, Visa domestic e-commerce transactions exceeded one billion dollars on 211 days, an increase of 19% from 2012.

In other findings:

The retail industry continues to hurtle toward an omnichannel reality with the most recent example involving SharperImage.com and the integration of “buy now” mobile capabilities provided by Digimarc into its print catalogs.

Wayne, N.J. -- Toys “R” Us unveiled redesigned and updated e-commerce sites for Toysrus.com and Babiesrus.com, with a fresh design and layout, revamped navigation and other new features. In addition, the sites have introduced social shopping – allowing customers to organize their most-wanted items in shareable toy and baby boards, while also viewing the most popular and trending products on the sites.