Sales & Marketing

Finish Line missed analyst estimates for third quarter earnings, an issue the company blames on declines in its apparel and accessories categories.   The athletic specialty retailer reported revenue of $371.1 million for the 13 weeks ended Nov. 26, 2016. While this is an increase of 3.0% over the prior year period, it falls short of the consensus estimate of $411.61 million.   

French children’s clothing company Orchestra-Premaman SA has won its battle to acquire to acquire Destination Maternity Corp.    The deal calls for Orchestra to acquire Destination Maternity for about $7.05 a share, valuing the U.S. retailer at about $100 million according to its share count.  

Consumers are spending more money per gift online this holiday season than last — 49% more to be exact.   That’s according to e-gifting platform and service Look Commerce, which announced insights into consumer gifting behavior and top gifts purchased between Dec. 10 and Dec. 16, 2016.  

Hoping to bolster sales across its home appliance category, Best Buy opened five outlet locations dedicated to major appliances.   The outlet stores are located in San Antonio and Famers Branch, Texas, Raleigh, N.C., Newark, Del., and Moreno Valley, Calif. All five locations opened this month, according to The Dallas News.  

With only days to go in the 2016 holiday shopping season, online desktop spending continues to rise.   For the holiday season-to-date, $55.2 billion has been spent online, marking a 13% increase versus the corresponding days last year. The most recent week, Dec. 12-18, posted a strong 15% growth in online sales, marking $7.6 billion in desktop spending during the last full week before Christmas.  

Did Amazon’s website had a technical glitch on one of the biggest shoppings day of the year?   According to various reports, Amazon’s site had a glitch on  “Super Saturday”  that temporarily prevented customers from making purchases.   

Luxury brands seems to be going the extra mile this holiday season.   This is according to “2016 Holiday Shipping,” a report from Kurt Salmon, part of Accenture Strategy, that analyzed orders with 84 retailers across a broad range of categories on Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2016. The study analyzed online orders that were shipped to consumers, as well as those collected in-store, to measure shipping speed, accuracy and cost.  

As the online shopping window is closing for traditional home delivery, PetSmart is offering free same-day shipments until Dec. 24.   The service is available in 17 metro areas across the nation, including Boston, Los Angeles, Orange County, San Francisco, San Jose, Las Vegas, Atlanta, Miami, Seattle, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., New York City, Yonkers and Northern New Jersey. Overall, the same-day deliveries will cover nearly 2,500 ZIP codes.