Consumer Analytics

Americans’ appetite for e-commerce grew again in 2014 with holiday sales slightly exceeding an optimistic forecast by digital measurement firm comScore.

Total desktop online sales for the entire November through December holiday season advanced 15 percent to $53.3 billion, comScore said. Cyber Monday retained its crown as the highest volume day with e-commerce spending of more than $2 billion.

Western grocer Save Mart Supermarkets plans to increase its shopper relevance by implementing new technology that ensures the operator of 221 stores prices more strategically, consistently and competitively.

Armonk, N.Y. – Retailers are suffering fewer cyber attacks, but for hackers it is becoming a situation of quality over quantity. According to findings released by IBM, despite a 50% decline in the number of cyber attacks against U.S. retailers, the number of records stolen from them remains at near record highs.

By Ulf Mattsson, Protegrity

Online warehouse club operator Green Polka Dot Box has a quirky name, but shoppers don’t seem to mind as the natural foods retailer’s December sales increased 65 percent.

"Based on early sales results, we anticipate that customer growth in this first month of the year will increase from the current level of approximately 4,200 to more than 6,000," said Rod Smith, CEO of the company. "And that we will see corresponding increases in monthly sales in January.”

Austin, Texas -- Revionics announced that Save Mart Supermarkets, which operates 221 stores under the banners of Save Mart, S-Mart Foods, Lucky and FoodMaxx, has entered into a multi-year agreement for Revionics’ SaaS-based price optimization solution and its advanced analytics services, including the key value item (KVI) analysis and store cluster analysis.

Atlanta -- The new year has brought news of a possible new data breach. Chick-fil-A acknowledged on Friday that it has received reports of potential “unusual activity” involving payment cards used at a few of its restaurants and that it was investigating whether a data breach had taken place.

“We take our obligation to protect customer information seriously, and we are working with leading IT security firms, law enforcement and our payment industry contacts to determine all of the facts,” the company said in a statement.  

Armonk, N.Y. – It was a very happy holiday for online and mobile retailers in 2014. According to IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark data for the 2014 holiday period (Nov. 1 - Dec. 31), online sales surged, as did mobile sales and traffic.

Online sales were up 13.9% from the same period in 2013. Mobile traffic accounted for 45% of all online traffic for the 2014 holiday season, an increase of 25.5% year-over-year. Mobile sales accounted for 22.6% of all online sales for the 2014 holiday season, an increase of 27.2% year-over-year.