Consumer Analytics

U.S. retail e-commerce spending from desktop computers for the first 45 days of the November-December 2013 holiday season totaled $37.8 billion, according to comScore. For the first time ever, the most recent workweek saw five individual days eclipse $1 billion in spending, led by Green Monday with $1.4 billion.

Chicago – Wintry weather across the Midwest and Northeast took its toll on store traffic, as a report by ShopperTrak showed that in-store sales for the week of Dec. 9 to Dec. 15 were down 0.8% from the same week last year. New data from ShopperTrak also shows that in-store shopper traffic also fell last week by 19.9% compared to the same time period in 2012.

By Len Shneyder, Senior Marketing Manager, OtherLevels

The numbers are out and they don’t lie: Almost 40% of all online traffic during Black Friday was driven by mobile devices. That figure is up 34% from the previous year, according to IBM’s Holiday Benchmark. But what’s more impressive than that is that nearly one-fifth of all online sales during the holiday shopping bonanza came from mobile devices.

New York -- The majority of American shoppers think that holiday discounts advertised by retailers are faked, according to a survey conducted by British marketing consultant David Rawlings.

Rawlings’ Google survey, "Before-Christmas sales — Do you believe the discounts are genuine?," queried 1,500 American Internet users, and found that more than 70% of those polled answered "no" to that question.

The majority of American shoppers think that holiday discounts advertised by retailers are faked, according to a survey conducted by British marketing consultant David Rawlings.

Rawlings’ Google survey, "Before-Christmas sales — Do you believe the discounts are genuine?" queried 1,500 American Internet users, and found that more than 70% of those polled answered "no" to that question.

By Graeme McVie, VP, LoyaltyOne, [email protected]

Statistics tell the story: the U.S. population is getting older at a dramatic rate. The Department of Health & Human Service’s Administration on Aging estimates that nearly 55 million people – nearly one-in-six – will be age 65 or older by 2020, compared with 40 million in 2010.

Washington, D.C. -- The U.S, Department of Commerce will reportedly start meeting with companies including Facebook, Apple and Wal-Mart in February 2014 to create voluntary guidelines for the commercial use of facial recognition technology. According to Bloomberg, the Department of Commerce plans to have formal guidelines ready for release in June 2014.

New York - Nearly four-in-10 Americans (38%) plan to spend less this holiday season than they did last year, while 14% plan to spend more this year and 47% plan to spend about the same amount as last year. According to a new Bankrate.com report, Americans planning to spend less outnumber those planning to spend more in each age and income group.

North Franklin, Conn. – Home product e-commerce retailer The Yankee Retail Company has implemented Yottaa Engagement Cloud to optimize user engagement and business performance. Yottaa Engagement Cloud is an SaaS platform that monitors and optimizes user engagement to increase conversions and revenue across mobile and websites.

It has been a rough start to the holiday season for the closeout retail sector. Building #19, a New England-based closeout chain that became something of a local institution, recently closed its doors after 50 years in business (though it plans to reopen a few locations as specialty rug stores). A few days later, national closeout powerhouse Big Lots reported disappointing financial results for the third quarter.