Data & Analytics

Durham, N.C. – Consumers are increasingly taking an omnichannel approach to their online shopping carts. According to the research presented in Bronto Software and Deamdware’s recent “Consumers Tell All” study, 40% of online shoppers leave items in a shopping cart to view later, on a different device, or in a brick-and-mortar shop.

New York - Digital ad spending in the U.S. will total $58.61 billion this year, and retailers' ad outlays will comprise 22% of that figure, or $12.91 billion, by far outpacing all other U.S. industries. According to new figures from eMarketer.

Retailers will spend nearly twice as much as any other industry on mobile advertising in 2015, and the sector's $6.65 billion will represent 23.2% of the $28.72 billion that advertisers in the U.S. will spend to reach consumers on mobile devices this year.

Houston – Specialty accessory retailer Charming Charlie is supporting international growth by moving its POS operations to the cloud. Charming Charlie has moved to a cloud strategy that leverages the POS engine in the cloud, but provides offline capabilities in the event the store loses cloud connectivity.

Lawrenceville, N.J.  – A new GS1 US standard offers a common approach for listing and classifying products across all e-commerce platforms. Developed in collaboration with 18 companies, including Best Buy, Bing, CNET, eBay, Google, and Wal-Mart, the GS1 US Simple Product Listing helps ensure that products are accurately represented across all sales channels and are more easily discoverable by search engines and consumers.

Bentonville, Ark. – Declining gas prices helped U.S. same-store sales at Wal-Mart Stores Inc., but the negative impact of foreign currency exchange and efforts to improve store experience and employee wages dampened total sales and operating profits.

By Jeff Collins

Atlanta – The Home Depot Inc. benefited from improvements in the housing market and the weather in the first quarter of fiscal 2015. Net earnings increased to $1.58 billion, up 14% from $1.38 billion in the first quarter a year ago.

The Home Depot reported sales of $20.9 billion for the first quarter of fiscal 2015, a 6.1% increase from the first quarter of fiscal 2014.

Pittsburgh – Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc. met Wall Street expectations with net income of $63.34 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2015, a 9% decrease from $69.99 million the same period a year earlier. The retailer also met the Street with consolidated net sales of $1.56 billion, a 9% increase from $1.34 billion.

However, same-store sales growth of 1% fell short of Wall Street predictions. Rising selling, general and administrative (SG&A) and pre-opening expenses dug into Dick’s profit.

Seattle – Director Martin Scorcese is renowned for providing great soundtracks to his films, and Starbucks Coffee Co. is attempting to follow in his footsteps in its stores. Starbucks and music streaming service Spotify will establish a multi-year relationship that will link its 7,000 U.S. company-operated stores in the U.S. and My Starbucks Rewards loyalty members with Spotify’s global users.  

Pittsburgh - American Eagle Outfitters Inc. continues its global expansion with new license agreements in South Korea with SK Networks Co. Ltd.; in Singapore with Trendz 360 Pte. Ltd.; and in Greece with Notos Com Holdings S.A. Stores will begin opening in mid-2015, and American Eagle currently expects to open approximately 40 licensed stores in fiscal 2015