Data & Analytics

Oakland, Calif. – Teen lifestyle brand Billabong is positioning its supply chain on the GT Nexus platform to support transformation of its wholesale and retail businesses. Billabong will connect suppliers and trading partners in a cloud-based network to facilitate and automate processes for supply chain financing, order collaboration, invoice management, in-transit visibility and payment management.

New York -- Dance-related fitness franchise Pure Barre will expand its base of 275 current locations by opening new spaces in three New Jersey markets — Denville, Short Hills and New Providence.

Winick Realty Group’s Gary Krauss is the exclusive broker representing Pure Barre in Northern New Jersey and he negotiated each of the three leases on behalf of the brand.

Foothill Ranch, Calif. -- The Wet Seal announced it would 338 stores, or about 66% of its total portfolio, “on or about” Jan. 7, resulting in the termination of some 3,695 full and part-time employees. The struggling teen apparel retailer said the decision to close the stores was based on its overall financial condition and an inability to negotiate meaningful concessions from its landlords.   

Walmart is turning to the head of its Latin American business to take over as CEO of Walmart de Mexico.

Enrique Ostale, who is chairman of the board of the retailer's Latin American business, will take over as Mexico chief executive on Jan. 1. The position will oversee Walmart's operations in Mexico and Central America.

ECRM compared retail circular advertising in December 2013 vs. December 2014 and noted trends occurring across top retail chains. CVS used longer but fewer December circulars, increasing circular pages by 18%. The CVS Christmas Clearance Sale circular was not seen in 2014. Walgreens cut two December 2014 comparable circulars accounting for the 22% drop in circular pages. CVS added a large “THROW THE PERFECT PARTY” promotional block on the inside front page of the 2014 holiday week circular featuring snacks, cookies, coffee, ice cream and sparkling cider.

Omnichannel access to the best merchandise in the world is the objective behind a new digital initiative at Neiman Marcus that has the retail embedding high resolution screen in shoe department tables.

The upscale department store operator worked with touchscreen technology provider T1Visions to create the interactive retail tables which are now live at Neiman’s Austin, Chicago and Los Angeles area stores.

Americans’ appetite for e-commerce grew again in 2014 with holiday sales slightly exceeding an optimistic forecast by digital measurement firm comScore.

Total desktop online sales for the entire November through December holiday season advanced 15 percent to $53.3 billion, comScore said. Cyber Monday retained its crown as the highest volume day with e-commerce spending of more than $2 billion.

Despite strides many retailers made this past holiday season integrating their physical and digital operations, omnichannel remains a highly underdeveloped opportunity for an industry looking to keep pace with shoppers.

By Ulf Mattsson, Protegrity

Stamford, Conn. – High-end furniture and accessories retailer Lovesac has deployed NetSuite to run mission-critical business processes including financials/ERP, inventory and order management, CRM, and POS across its 60 stores in shopping malls across the U.S. All these processes are connected within NetSuite's single unified cloud solution.