Supply Chain & Merchandising

Shoppers in Central and South America can now shop eBay in Spanish and Portuguese using their local currencies.

The global commerce platform and a mobile commerce leader launched Spanish- and Portuguese-language sites to better serve customers across Latin America.

More than 2 million people in Latin America already shop eBay in English and U.S. dollars. Now, when these customers visit eBay, they will see localized shopping experiences in Spanish or Portuguese — online and on eBay mobile.

By Evan Gold, VP of client services, Planalytics

The winter of 2014 brought record cold and snow throughout North America and its impact on business and consumer spending were widespread and significant. How impactful was it? Well, for the S&P 500 companies, the word “weather” was mentioned in almost 200 earnings calls from January through March, which is a 81% increase compared to last year.

Walmart continues to envision flat same store sales at its U.S. stores after reporting weaker than expected profits on weak U.S. sales results that were negatively affected by a winter that wouldn’t end.

Merrillville, Ind. – Consumer buying club franchisor DrectBuy and eInfochips are collaborating for a business intelligence (BI) collaboration solution that integrates data from warehouse clubs and the DirectBuy e-commerce portal. The solution drives consumer behavior with an enhanced shopping experience, and also enables analytics for data-driven decision making.

Outdoor apparel, equipment and footwear supplier The North Face has made key leadership and organizational changes to its sales agency partnerships.

Menomonee Falls, Wis. -- Kohl’s Corp. missed Wall Street expectations for profits, revenue and same-store sales during a difficult first quarter. Net income, which had been expected to rise slightly, fell 15% to $125 million, from $147 million.

In addition, net sales declined 3% to $4.07 billion from $4.2 billion, while analysts had expected them to rise to $4.22 billion. Same-store sales, also expected to increase, fell 3.4%.

Endicia, a provider of e-commerce shipping technology has added an Amazon integration to its shipping software's capabilities. The solution, which allows users to import orders and post-back tracking information, is designed to increase shipping efficiency.

Sellers can now connect their Amazon store to Endicia's software, allowing them to seamlessly import order information and automatically post-back tracking data. This eliminates the need to copy and paste. Endicia also provides label customization options that are not available through Amazon.

Kohl’s joins a growing list of retailers whose first-quarter results took a hit from a severe and extended winter. Despite missing estimates, the company is staying firm on its guidance for the full fiscal year.