Data & Analytics

Whole Foods Market is embarking on a project to teach its environmentally-minded customers that not all recycling is created equal.

The retailer announced a new partnership with Recycling Across America that aims to help reduce global waste and close the loop with the reuse of recycled materials in manufacturing.

New York -- Commercial real estate services firm DTZ, which is backed by private-equity firm TPG, has entered into a deal to acquire rival Cushman & Wakefield Inc. for $2 billion.

The combined company will have 43,000 employees, annual revenues of more than $5.5 billion and manage more than 4 billion square feet of real estate globally.  It will operate under the Cushman & Wakefield name.

New York – Subscription retailers outpace e-commerce retailers and flash sale businesses by a long shot when it comes to a customer’s average numbers of orders in the span of a year. According to analysis of more than 10 million orders from 2.5 million unique customers by Retention Science, subscription retailers average 7.68 orders per customer in 12 months.

In contrast, e-commerce retailers only average 2.36 orders per customer in 12 months, and flash sale retailers only average 1.41 orders in that time span.

Albertslund, Denmark -- Kvickly Supermarkets, part of Danish grocery retailer Coop Denmark, will implement Displaydata’s Chroma electronic shelf labers (ESLs) across 29 of its store locations. Coop Denmark, in partnership with Displaydata’s partner Delfi Technologies, has already implemented ESLs in more than 300 of its stores, including brands: Kvickly, SuperBrugsen, Dagli’ Brugsen and Irma.

By Nader Fathi

By Jeff Warren

Seattle – Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba Holding Group Ltd. has disclosed it holds a 9.3% stake in online retailer Zulily. Alibaba has purchased about 4.8 million class A shares for $56 million. This represents about 17% of Zulily’s Class A stock.

Asheville, N.C. – A significant increase in gain from the disposal of assets helped boost net income 37% at Ingles Markets Inc. in the second quarter of fiscal 2015 to $14.3 million, from $10.5 million in the same quarter a year earlier. Lower gasoline prices helped reduce net sales 3% to $915.3 million, from $947.76 million.

Excluding gasoline, same-store sales rose 1.2%.

Boston – With engaging the customer and managing the customer experience as top priorities for retailers, Boston Retail Partners’ 2015 CRM/Unified Commerce Survey indicates that 87% of retailers plan to use gamification to engage the customer within five years.

Austin, Texas – Epicor Software Corp. is spinning off its retail solutions business into a separate, privately held company, in partnership with funds advised by Apax Partners. Referred to as “SpinCo” until the transaction is finalized, the Epicor retail solutions business continues under the leadership of Noel Goggin, executive VP and general manager.