Sales & Marketing

Gap Inc. says its fourth quarter results show the company's turnaround plan is working, but the retailer continues to post lackluster sales and earnings.

The parent company of Old Navy and Banana Republic says fourth-quarter profits were $214 million, or 53 cents per share, for the three-month period ended Jan. 30. That compares with $319 million or 75 cents per share, in the year-ago period. Revenue dropped nearly 7% in the quarter to $4.39 billion. Same-store sales declined 7%.

Perhaps no other retailer is profiting as well from Americans' changing eating habits than Sprouts Farmers Market, which reported record sales and earnings for the fourth quarter.

The Arizona-based grocer said that same store sales during the period ended Jan. 3 rose 7.4%. Net income was $28.2 million and diluted earnings per share were 18 cents. Net sales were $3.59 billion, a 21% increase compared to reported net sales in 2014. Adjusted diluted earnings per share of $0.86, a 19% increase from 2014.

Online deal provider Groupon has joined an elite group – companies that have sold one billion products.

In Groupon’s case, the product is also known as a “Groupon,” or a limited-time, localized online promotion. It took Groupon, which launched in October 2008, roughly seven-and-a-half years to reach the billion-Groupon mark.

If you want to improve your SMS marketing, you should take a look at Walmart; they’ve got some dynamite strategies. Walmart’s SMS offerings are broad, yet each either solves a problem or reduces a pain point traditionally associated with in-store shopping.

In-Store Product Info via SMS
Walmart has developed an SMS-based system called Simple Text that allows mobile users to send a text to a phone number posted in-store to receive product location and information.

A lot of retailers reach the stage of installing traffic counters in their stores, but it’s at this point that problems can start. The traffic data can become unreliable or the store operations team may not know what to do with the data or how to apply it, which leaves retailers looking for the expected insights and additional sales.
The fact is, they’re there — retailers just need to know how to find them.

An emerging consumer demographic is showing strong support for an emerging trend in transactions.

A new GfK study of 1,000 U.S. consumers shows that Generation Z (ages 18 to 24) is twice as likely to make a mobile payment as the total population. Smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices account for just 3% of all transactions in the U.S. – but 7% among Gen Z.

Boston-based online home furnishings retailer Wayfair Inc. managed to shrink its net loss in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2015 while other financial results soared.

Wayfair reported net loss of $15.49 million, down from $72.55 million in the same quarter a year earlier. Growth in cost of goods sold, operating expenses and other costs did not match the rate of revenue growth. Net revenue increased 81% to $739.79 million, from $408.62 million.

Chicago -- CBRE Group announced that Blake Johnson has joined CBRE Capital Markets as executive VP. Based in Chicago, Johnson will join the firm’s Institutional Properties team and will be responsible for office investment sales, with a concentrated focus on Chicago central business district (CBD) office transactions. Johnson will partner with Paul Lundstedt, Dan Deuter, Tom Sitz and Cody Hundertmark to expand the firm’s market share in the region.