eCommerce

Toronto, Canada – The bad news continued for Sears Canada Inc. during the third quarter of fiscal 2014. Following the announcement by parent company Sears Holding that it would sell off most of its 51% ownership stake to shareholders and reports that J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. will end its agreement to issue credit cards for Sears Canada in November 2015, Sears Canada reported a net loss of $118.7 million, significantly larger than the $48.8 million net loss reported the same period a year earlier.

Boca Raton, Fla. – Polaroid is opening three locations of its Fotobar experiential retail concept in the Los Angeles area, with the first debuting Nov. 18 at Westfield Culver City. The 300-sq.-ft.micro-stores offer a cube shape and Polaroid Color Spectrum logo, and customers can take a seat at the Fotobar and transform their pictures instantly from their smartphone, Facebook or Instagram  into three different size Polaroid pictures which can be collected in unique Polaroid shadowboxes or other picture accessories.  

DENVER — An estimated 28% of shoppers plan to do most of their shopping at mass retailers versus 26% who will opt to shop online retailers this holiday season, according to an ongoing shopper behaviour study conducted by The Integer Group and M/A/R/C Research.

Holiday shoppers plan to cash in on a range of offers and value-add services this holiday season. Free shipping continues to be the most popular offer for holiday shoppers, with 58% of shoppers reporting they expect to take advantage of it this holiday season.

SAN FRANCISCO — Gap Inc. is looking to make shopping as easy and convenient this holiday season– regardless of whether shoppers  prefer to shop online, in stores or on their  mobile device.  Plans include the launch of an online Wish List tool that allows shoppers to create a list of most-wanted items from across all five of the company’s brands: Gap, Banana Republic & Banana Republic Factory Store, Old Navy, Athleta and Piperlime.

SAN FRANCISCO — Researching and browsing gifts on mobile far outranks purchasing items (whether at home or in a competitor’s store), and even coveted millennial shoppers are heading to the store or laptop to complete major purchases, according to a study by RichRelevance.

Former Guess? and Victoria’s Secret executive Amber Fredman-Tarshis has joined Pacific Sunwear of California to help the teen retailer brand reconnect with customers.

San Luis Obispo, Calif.– Shopatron, a provider of cloud-based distributed order management solutions, is integrating its Perfect Sync technology with Demandware Link, a best-of-breed community committed to accelerating the adoption of innovative commerce technologies that complement the Demandware Commerce suite. The integration represents the first rollout of Shopatron’s Perfect Sync technology, which provides real-time insight into front-end and order management.

Pittsburgh, P.A. – Although weakening golf and hunting sales contributed to a small decline in net income at Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc. in the third quarter of fiscal 2014, the retailer still beat Wall Street profit expectations. Dick’s reported net income of $49.2 million, about a 2% drop from $50 million the same quarter a year earlier.
Net sales rose 9% to $1.53 billion from $1.4 billion, and same-store sales increased 1.1%. E-commerce penetration was 7.3% of total sales, compared to 6.5% in the third quarter of the previous year.