Data & Analytics

New York -- High-profile retailers can make a high-impact difference when they use their clout to do good.  

Case in point: Ann Inc., parent to Ann Taylor and Loft, donated more than $4.3 million to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation to fund groundbreaking cancer research. The brands parlayed successes from the 2014 spring and fall campaigns and have brought the company's total corporate donation to $22.3 million in the past 10 years.

Analytics leader SAS has long promised customers “the power to know” and now a major enhancement to data visualization capabilities means retailers don’t have to be a Ph.D to do things faster and more effectively with their massive volumes of data.

Ace Hardware is America’s favorite home improvement store and Costco is the favorite for home furnishings, according to a new survey by Market Force Information.

Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook said the launch of the company's new watch has been "overwhelmingly positive" just as another seemingly unstoppable surge of iPhone and App Store sales helped Apple Inc. post a 33% increase in profit for the second quarter, setting a record for its best March quarter ever.

New Albany, Ohio – Abercrombie & Fitch Co. is overhauling both how its stores operate and how it markets its brand image. According to the Columbus Business Journal, Abercrombie will focus on the in-store customer experience with features like order-in-store technology and techniques to keep lines short.

Hackensack, N.J. – Frequency of customer visits and customer delight are crucial indicators of customer loyalty. According to a new survey of 1,000 adult U.S. consumers from branding firm Strativity Group Inc., almost 40% of customers interact with their favorite company at least weekly.

In theory, the launch of a limited-time, 250-piece Lilly Pulitzer designer collection on Sunday, April 19 should have been a major coup for Target. Instead, it was a major disaster in marketing, CRM, and operations. By now, the story of how consumer demand for Lilly Pulitzer overwhelmed Target’s website and stores has been told many times. Let’s look at three lessons retailers (including Target) can learn from this experience.

Know Your Customer

Seattle – Increases in expenses including fulfillment, marketing and technology helped swing Amazon.com to a net loss of $57 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2015 from net income of $108 million the same quarter a year earlier. Amazon met Wall Street expectations with the loss.

Amazon fared better with net sales, which increased 15% to $22.72 billion from $19.74 billion. In North America, net sales grew 24% to $13.41 billion from $10.08 billion.

Seattle – Net earnings rose 16% to $494.9 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2015 from $427 million a year earlier at Starbucks Corp. Cost of sales grew at a slower pace than extremely strong revenue growth, which helped boost profits.

Starbucks plans to open 1,650 net new stores globally during fiscal 2015. This includes 600 new stores in the Americas, half licensed; 200 new stores in Europe/Middle East/Africa, primarily licensed; and 850 new stores in China/Asia-Pacific, primarily licensed.

Cupertino, Calif. – Tech geeks rejoice: the Apple Watch from Apple Inc. is here. From a retail perspective, the device Apple Inc. calls “our most personal device yet” offers new ways to engage consumers, who are obtaining new ways to stay digitally connected.