Data & Analytics

Some of the details are vague, but businesses and individuals selling items via Amazon.com experienced a generally successful holiday season.

According to figures released by Amazon, more than 23 million items were ordered worldwide from sellers on Amazon on Cyber Monday, a more than 40% increase year-over-year. Use of the Amazon Sponsored Products targeted advertising service by sellers grew more than 100%year-over-year worldwide. Clicks on Sponsored Products in the U.S. grew by more than 200% from the previous holiday season.

Marsh Supermarkets, a regional grocer with 73 stores in Indiana and Ohio, needs to know its customers especially well to compete with larger supermarket chains.

To that end, Indianapolis-based Marsh is partnering with targeted marketing software vendor inStream to provide personalized, targeted offers on the front of consumer receipts. InStream drives customer engagement and sales via personalized targeting based on customer-specific purchase data.

On the heels of adding new security features to its Iris connected home device, Lowe’s is further expanding its presence in the connected home market.

Chain Store Age’s annual SPECS conference is the must-attend event for retail and restaurant executives involved in the design, construction, and maintenance of stores. This year’s show — to be held March 13-15, 2016, at the Hilton Anatole, Dallas — is shaping up as one of the best ever, with presentations by Target, Under Armour and The Container Store to name but a few.

With the major selling holidays now behind us, retailers are preparing to handle the onslaught of returns that began on Dec. 26 and continue well into the first few weeks of the New Year.

In fact, according to the National Retail Federation’s “2014 Consumer Returns in the Retail Industry,” the amount of holiday merchandise returned to stores last year amounted to $68.9 billion.

Following a contentious exchange with a large shareholder in 2015, Children’s Place is changing a key provision of its bylaws that allows investors to nominate directors and allowing a vote on several other measures shareholders identified as concerns.

The deadline to enter the Retail Design Institute’s annual store design competition has been extended to January 15, 2016.

The competition celebrates exceptional retail experiences across more than 20 categories from department stores and specialty shops to restaurants and pop-ups. In addition, a single "Store of the Year" will be chosen from among the winning entries.

Cleveland -- Forest City Enterprises, Forest City Realty Trust announced the completion of the merger of FCE Merger Sub, Inc., an Ohio corporation, with and into Forest City Enterprises, Inc., with Forest City Enterprises, Inc. surviving as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Forest City Realty Trust, Inc.

The merger marks the final step in the company’s planned conversion to real estate investment trust (REIT) status for the taxable year ending December 31, 2016.