eCommerce

Washington, D.C. -- A report released Monday by the Commerce Department showed that retail sales in the U.S. climbed more than anticipated in September, boosted by unexpected increases in household spending.

Sales advanced 1.1% in September, on the heels on a 1.2% increase in August that was the biggest since Oct. 2010. The median forecast of 77 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for a 0.8% rise in September.

Foster City, Calif. -- Visa Inc. and 1-800-Flowers.com said Monday that V.me by Visa will be offered as a checkout option on the florist’s site, making the digital wallet service more broadly available so more consumers can purchase online by simply entering a username and password.

1-800-Flowers.com joins merchants such as Rakuten Buy.com, StudentUniverse.com, MovieTickets.com, BlueNile.com, ShoeBuy.com, ZooStores.com, Cooking.com, 88Hours.com and Scentiments.com, which are all using the digital wallet service.

New York -- Learn how Chico's FAS is staying ahead of the information evolution and providing personalized customer interactions at a Chain Store Age webinar on Thursday, Oct. 18 ( 2 p.m. ET, 11 a.m. PT). Bob Murray, architect of Chico's Store Technology, will discuss such top-of-mind imperatives as loyalty, mobile, and seamless digital connections with the customer in the omni-channel market space.

NEW YORK — The Deloitte Consumer Spending Index to 3.53 in September from a reading of 3.27 the previous month, primarily due to a nearly 11% increase in home prices, which offset weakness in other areas of the index.

Chicago -- PacSun announced Monday it has partnered with Lyons Consulting Group to upgrade its e-commerce and mobile sites. PacSun said it had outgrown its previous platform and needed a more scalable solution in order to support its growth and provide the shopping capabilities that their shoppers have come to expect.

CHICAGO — PacSun has partnered with Lyons Consulting Group to upgrade both their e-commerce and mobile sites. 

Lyons Consulting Group migrated the site onto the more robust Demandware platform and added several custom features, including thirteen third party integrations such as Gigya Social Sign in and Visa V.Me. Through this process, lyonscg produced a more flexible front-end, improved content manageability, all while creating a fun, engaging, and intuitive shopping experience when browsing either the ecommerce or mobile sites.

NAPERVILLE, Ill. — OfficeMax has launched a new line of pens under its TUL brand.

"Over the past eight years, TUL has become the preferred premium brand of writing instruments and desk accessories for many of our customers because of the great design, performance and value it provides," said Ronald Lalla, EVP and chief merchandising officer at OfficeMax. "Our new collection of TUL pens provides both consumers and business customers with multiple designs that deliver exceptional writing experiences time and time again."