Data & Analytics

The mobile payments landscape just lost one competitor — for now.   Google announced that it was ending its “Hands Free” payments pilot as of Wednesday, Feb. 8. The program, which launched in the San Francisco Bay Area in March 2016, enabled users to pay for goods and services without having to take out their phone, VentureBeat said.   

Target is prepping for another program aimed at start-ups, specifically those focused on health and wellness.   The new program, called “Target Takeoff,” supports health- and wellness-related start-ups through a “mini-accelerator” effort that will help young companies develop and connect with the major retailers in town.  

Whole Foods Market, which is known for its premier shopping experience and customer service, wants to up the ante — especially among loyal shoppers.    By partnering with global customer science company dunnhumby, the natural foods grocer will use customer data and insights to evolve its category management and merchandising efforts. Specifically, the chain will apply customer data models, science, and industry-leading processes to make store-level merchandising decisions based on specific customer needs.  

A less than stellar holiday season for U.S. department stores has led Moody's Investors Service to revise its forecasts downward for the sector's operating income.   In its new report, the rating agency said it now expects 2016 aggregate operating income to decline 18%, rather than 11%, and for sales to also decline in the year ahead.  

The National Retail Federation’s economic forecast for 2017 is a mostly positive one.   The association is projecting that retail industry sales, which exclude automobiles, gasoline stations and restaurants, will grow between 3.7% and 4.2% over 2016, roughly in line with last year’s 3.8% increase.     Online and other non-store/online sales, which are included in the overall number, are expected to increase between 8% and 12%.  

CVS Health on Thursday reported record fiscal fourth-quarter and full-year 2016 results   Net revenues for the three months ended Dec. 31 increased 11.7% to $46 billion, up from $41.1 billion in the year ago period.  

Amid efforts to crack down on the sale of counterfeit goods, Alibaba is in a center of another related fight.   The Chinese e-commerce giant said Thursday, Feb. 9, that several intellectual property (IP) agencies were filing false complaints against vendors that continue to sell fake goods on its e-commerce platforms, said Fortune.   

Web searches are often inconsistent due to irrelevant keywords and content, making it more important than ever for brands to use more retail-specific factors to stay relevant.    Details that can improve brands’ visibility in Google searches are shared in the “E-commerce Ranking Factors 2017 — Ten Things eCommerce Sites Need to Know to Rank on Google,” a report from Searchmetrics that analyzed the top 20 desktop search results on Google for over 6,000 industry-specific keywords.