eCommerce

New York City -- Tiffany & Co. reported Tuesday that sales growth weakened in the United States and Europe during the holiday season, although other regions experienced significant gains.

The company cut its yearly earnings guidance. 

Well, the holidays are finally over and the verdict is in: Retailers reported a 3.5% year-over-year sales increase in December — that’s better than I thought we would see — and a 3.3% increase overall for the season. While slightly more than some analysts anticipated (myself included!), it wasn’t the happiest holiday for everyone. Certain sectors (electronics) and brands (Macy’s, Nordstrom) did better than expected, while others (Target and J.C. Penney) did worse.

Minneapolis -- Christopher & Banks Corp. announced that its board of directors approved a change in the company’s fiscal year-end to the Saturday nearest to the end of January, rather than the Saturday nearest to the end of February.

The retailer said the change, which is effective for the company’s current fiscal year, will provide certain benefits, including aligning its reporting periods to be more consistent with that of other specialty retail companies.
 

Seattle -- Nordstrom plans to open a Nordstrom Rack in Tysons Corner, Va. The approximately 42,000-sq.-ft., two-level store is scheduled to open during fall 2012.

Nordstrom Rack will open in the former Filene's Basement space and join tenants Morton's Steakhouse, Bertucci's restaurant and Bank of America in a 215,000-sq.-ft.  mixed-use project. The project is owned by Rocks Tysons Two LLC and managed by Allen & Rocks, Inc. with KLNB Retail handling leasing.
 

WEST CHESTER, Pa. — QVC announced that Linda Dillman has been appointed CIO, reporting to QVC president and CEO Mike George.

Dillman, who has more than 20 years of experience leading IT teams, most recently served as SVP global IT at HP. Previously, she was EVP and CIO at Wal-Mart Stores, where she was instrumental in transforming the supply chain management model for Walmart, according to a QVC press release. 

West chester, Pa. -- QVC announced that Linda Dillman has been appointed CIO, Dillman most recently served as senior VP global IT at HP. Previously, she was executive VP and CIO at Wal-Mart Stores.

New York City -- PayPal, which allows consumers to pay for goods online, is running a trial of in-store payments with Home Depot, Reuters reported. PayPay is a division of eBay Inc.

A pilot program for PayPal's new POS, technologies is being run in five Home Depot stores and involves a "small number" of PayPal employees, according to the report.
 

Hampshire, United Kingdom -- The global redemption rate of mobile coupons will average at over 8% by 2016, which represents an eightfold increase over the best paper coupons campaigns, according to a new report from Juniper Research. North American and Western European markets are now beginning to follow the same growth path as the Far East & China and by 2016 there will be over 600 million regular mobile coupon users worldwide.