Sales & Marketing

Portland, Ore. – Consumers have trust in well-known brands online, possibly to the detriment of themselves and their employers and to and the benefit of cybercriminals. According to a new survey of 2,011 U.S. and U.K. consumers from security solutions provider Tripwire, more than 40% of consumers believe emails from “trusted brands” are safe to click, and nearly a quarter (24%) anticipate doing at least part of their holiday shopping while at work.

Survey findings include:

At a time when food pantries have a critical shortage of supplies and increased demand from those in need, Walmart is making a major pledge to help the hungry.

Seattle – Starbucks wants customers to feel wonderful this holiday season. From now through Jan. 5, 2015, customers who pay using a Starbucks Card or Starbucks mobile app, can enter the Starbucks It’s a Wonderful Card Ultimate Giveaway.

The omnichannel promotion offers the chance to win one of 482,000 instant prizes, and 10 customers in the U.S. will win the prize of Starbucks for Life, which is one free food or beverage item from participating stores every day for the next 30 years.

Washington, D.C. – In-store sales were down from Thanksgiving Day through Black Friday, but the culprit may have been early holiday shopping more than lackluster consumer interest. According to the Applied Predictive Technologies (APT) Index of U.S. same-store sales, in-store sales dropped 5.8% during that two-day period compared to the previous year.

New York – Black Friday was a more social event than Cyber Monday, with 3.5 million tweets and 838 million impressions compared to 839,000 tweets and 309 million impressions. According to a study from StatSocial, women were more likely than men to socially comment on both events, accounting for 59% of

Black Friday comments and 63% of Cyber Monday comments.

In a move to showcase its advanced shipping capabilities to holiday shoppers Amazon.com is touting the finer points of its eighth generation fulfillment centers.

The online giant said its eighth generation fulfillment centers embody two decades worth of software and mechanical innovations including extensive robotics technology from Kiva Systems, a company Amazon acquired several years ago.

New York – If you were looking for quality call center service from an online retailer during Black Friday or Cyber Monday, then you wanted to shop at L.L. Bean. According to data from analysis firm StellaService, L.L. Bean led in customer service call response time on Black Friday (10 seconds), Cyber Monday (six seconds) and Cyber Weekend (nine seconds).

L.L. Bean actually improved its call center response time compared to its month-to-date average. Other notable findings included: