Mass Merchant

Matthews, N.C. – Americans prefer to make most gift purchases in stores close to home. Seven-in-10 consumers in a recent survey conducted for Family Dollar say they describe themselves as in-person shoppers, while only 30% say they would be best characterized as online shoppers.

Armonk, N.Y. - Shoppers made Cyber Monday 2013 the biggest online shopping day in history with a 20.6% increase in online sales. The latest cloud-based analytics findings from IBM show that mobile sales led the way, exceeding 17% of total online sales, an increase of 55.4% year-over-year.

Cyber Monday also capped what IBM data indicates is the highest five-day online sales period on record from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday, which grew 16.5% from the same period in 2012.

Online sales on Cyber Monday increased by 16% to $2.29 billion compared to last year, according to Adobe’s Digital Index 2013, and a record 18.3% of those sales came from mobile devices — a surge of 80% compared to last year.

Consumer shopping preferences continued to shift online with Cyber Monday being the fifth day in a row of record-breaking online sales. While “brick and click” retailers dominated Thanksgiving weekend sales, Internet retailers generated the most sales on Cyber Monday with a 42% share.

Carlisle, Pa. -- Paula Price is resigning as executive VP and CFO as Ahold USA.

By Rodney Mason, CMO, Parago, [email protected]

In its annual survey of holiday spending trends, Deloitte reports that 46% of consumers plan to do their holiday shopping online. That puts online shopping in the number-one position for the first time in the survey’s history. Deloitte also found that nearly six out of 10 shoppers plan to use self-help technologies in-store when holiday shopping.

Suffern, N.Y. – Ascena Retail Group, parent company of Lane Bryant and Justice, reported net income of $52.6 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2014, a 22% increase from $43.1 million a year earlier.

Net sales totaled roughly $1.2 billion, a 5% increase from about $1.14 billion.

Safeway has reached a definitive agreement to sell 11 of its Dominick's stores in the Chicago metropolitan area in a cash and lease assumption transaction to Roundy's. Roundy's will take possession of the stores during a transition period that will take place in the next two months.

The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions.

Seattle -- Nordstrom announced plans to further expand its Los Angeles-area presence with the addition of a Nordstrom Rack at Janss Marketplace in Thousand Oaks, Calif.

The approximately 40,000-sq.-ft. store is scheduled to open in fall 2015. The Rack location at Janss Marketplace is a development by Seritage Realty Trust, a division of Sears Holdings Corporation.

Nordstrom has operated a full-line store approximately one mile from the new Rack location at The Oaks since 2008.