eCommerce

Perhaps no single brand had a holiday season quite as rocky as Sears. When the retailer announced a string of bad news on Jan. 9, shares of Sears Holding Corp. (which includes both Sears and Kmart) went through the floor. Holiday sales at Sears stores were down 9.2% in the nine weeks prior to Jan. 6, a brutal figure when you consider that overall retail sales were up slightly over the holidays (which I’ll discuss more in my next column).

Virtual Piggy, the provider of safe youth payments technology Oink, has teamed up with WorldPay US to increase its strategic 2014 merchant acquisition plans within the teen market.

The WorldPay payment processing platform is used for in-person credit and debit transactions, online and mobile payments. According to Oink, its relationship with WorldPay will bring the safe youth payments technology to the WorldPay merchant network and facilitate integrations into teen-focused retail websites and shops.

Covington, La. — Stirling Properties has inked a deal to provide comprehensive leasing, sales, property and construction management services for Perkins Rowe, a mixed-use development in Baton Rouge, La.

Minneapolis – Target Corp. notified Canadian shoppers who visited U.S, Target stores between Nov. 27 and Dec. 15, 2013 that some of their personal data may have been compromised in the major data breach that hit the retailer. According to the Canadian Press, that information includes personal data such as names, addresses, emails and phone numbers, but not financial data.

Seattle – Nordstrom plans to open its third fulfillment center at Conewago Industrial Park in Elizabethtown, Pa. Work has begun on the approximately 672,000-sq.-ft. building, with an additional 470,000-square foot mezzanine, which is scheduled to open in summer 2015, and the company is taking bids.

Amazon has reportedly obtained a patent for “anticipatory shipping,” or a logistics technique using customer behavior and history to prepare items for shipping before they are actually ordered. According to the Wall Street Journal, Amazon received the patent in December 2013.

Indianapolis – Hhgregg is now offering online ordering with in-store pickup for Apple products, including iPhone, iPad and iPod models and Apple TV devices. Customers can pay in advance and not have to go through in-store checkout.

By Netta Kelvis, head of marketing, Custora

[Editor’s Note: Custora has released its Holiday 2013 E-Commerce Recap, which is based on the company’s real-time dashboard aggregating data from over 100 U.S. retailers. Here's a blog post by Custora’s head on marketing summarizing the recap's highlights.]