Data & Analytics

For the second time in less than a month, Costco has elected a veteran of the telecommunications industry to serve on the retailer's board of directors.

Costco announced that John W. Stanton, chairman of Trilogy International Partners, Inc., and Trilogy Equity Partners, has been elected to Costco's board. Stanton founded and served as chairman and CEO of Western Wireless Corporation, a wireless telecommunications company, from 1992 until shortly after its acquisition by ALLTEL Corporation in 2005.

Thanks to modern technology and digital tools, the opportunities to interact with and buy from a brand today are ubiquitous. Customers want to shop anytime, anywhere. Omnichannel rules, and smart retailers are getting on board.

It’s not your imagination – a lot of new players are entering the mobile payment market. In the past few months, entities including Google, Samsung, Capital One, and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co have launched or announced plans to launch new mobile payment solutions. And retailer-backed Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX) expanded trials of its CurrentC mobile payment app this summer. Retailers like Starbucks are bypassing the middleman entirely and offering mobile payment from their own proprietary e-commerce apps.

For the third quarter ended Sept. 30, CVS Health reported $38.6 billion in net revenues, representing an increase of 10.3%. Revenues across the Pharmacy Services Segment increased 13.3% to $25.5 billion, primarily driven by growth in specialty pharmacy and pharmacy network claims.

“We delivered solid revenue and operating profit growth across our businesses, and we continue to expect significant growth in the fourth quarter, rounding out another terrific year for our company,” Larry Merlo, CVS Health president and CEO, said.

The pharmacy services segment helped CVS Health post a $10.3% increase in net revenue in the third quarter.

Mobile payment keeps getting more popular, at least on the provider side.

According to Re/Code, Amazon.com is launching a mobile “Pay with Amazon” button that will let consumers automatically use their Amazon payment information to make purchases on other retailer’s e-commerce apps. While not exactly a mobile wallet app, the Pay With Amazon button is definitely an attempt to obtain a piece of the mobile payment market which Apple, Samsung, Google, and several other entities are trying to take an early lead in.

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Target Corp. may have shuttered its Canadian stores, but that doesn’t mean the discounter is done with global retailing.

According to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Target has expanded a 2014 pilot program that made about 200,000 items available to U.K. customers via eBay to 64 countries. Target is also partnering with international shipping logistics firm Borderfree in a test of a new global e-commerce site, intl.target.com.

For pure play retailers, having the right digital commerce platform is absolutely critical.

San Francisco-based digital fashion retailer ModCloth is ensuring that it can support the kind of unified omnichannel shopping experience that will bring customers back and support global expansion initiatives.

O’Reilly Automotive plans to accelerate its expansion plans in 2016 following record revenue and profit in the third quarter.

The auto parts retailer now plans to open 210 new stores next year. The company is also on track to open 205 new stores by the end of 2015.