eCommerce

Online discount retailer DealYard has optimized its site in a customer-friendly way, using personalized recommendations that are provided by CRM vendor 4-tell. In addition, users will receive ideas on what to add next, a feature provided by VeInteractive.

Armonk, N.Y. -- Overall Christmas Day online sales were up 16.5% from the same period last year. IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark data for Dec. 25, 2013 shows mobile traffic was the highest IBM recorded this holiday season, accounting for 48% of all online traffic, up 28.3% compared to the same period last year.

Mobile sales also remained strong, approaching 29% of all online sales, up 40% from 2012.

January 2014 is projected to be the coldest in three years for the U.S. as a whole. The storm track, which will favor the milder and wetter Pacific, will be driven inland across the West with storms moving into the Plains and then heading into the Great Lakes or re-developing off the New England coast. This pattern will produce colder trends across the East Coast, but there will be short warm-ups ahead of the storms that will help to keep average temperatures near normal.

Walnut Creek, Calif. — Transwestern has brokered leases on behalf of two retail tenants: 9Round Fitness & Kickboxing and Buon Vino Manufacturing.

9Round Fitness has taken a 1,300-sq.-ft. lease for five years in the Diablo Plaza in San Ramon, Calif.  Buon Vino signed a 1,635-sq.-ft. lease for three years at 1545 Locust St. in downtown Walnut Creek, Calif.

Amazon announced a record-setting holiday season for its annual membership program Amazon Prime. More than 1 million customers around the world became new Prime members in the third week of December.

On Amazon’s peak shipping day, more Prime items were shipped worldwide than ever before. The entire 2013 holiday season was the best ever for Amazon, with more than 36.8 million items ordered worldwide on Cyber Monday, which is a record-breaking 426 items per second, and millions of customers unwrapped Kindle e-readers and Kindle Fire tablets this holiday season.

New York – Amazon.com and Macy’s reportedly look financially strong even in the wake of expected post-holiday discounting, while Sears, Kmart and J.C. Penney are not expected to be so fortunate. According to new analysis from 24/7 Wall St., Amazon.com should hold onto substantial holiday profits as long as free shipping does not impact its margins.

Consumer electronics retailer HH Gregg is looking for a new chief financial officer after Jeremy Aguilar resigned from the company to accept a similar role elsewhere.

Aguilar spent eight years with the Indianapolis-based operator of 228 stores. His resignation is effective as of January 31 at which time SVP of finance Andrew Giesler will assume CFO responsibilities on an interim basis.

Tucson, Ariz. — Metrocom-DBC doing business as Metro PCS is expanding with a new 1,380-sq.-ft. store in Tucson’s Northgate Plaza. The prepaid wireless service provider has 14 stores in California and two in Phoenix. Metro PCS is planning four new stores in Tucson. T-Mobile owns Metro PCS.

Commercial Retail Advisors represented the landlord, TNP SRT Portfolio I, in the transaction. The tenant was self-represented.