Data & Analytics

Retailers wondering how much of an issue e-commerce returns are may not like the answer.

According to a new infographic from returns management software provider TrueShip, E-commerce returns are both prevalent and frequently the fault of the retailer.

TrueShip data shows that about one-third of all products purchased online are returned by consumers. Of these returns, almost one-quarter (23%) are due to the wrong item being shipped. Another 22% of e-commerce returns results from a product looking and appearing different when it arrives than it did online.

The digital and physical selling environments are converging. Whether this phenomenon is called “cross-channel”, “omnichannel”, or given some other label, consumers now routinely use their Internet-enabled (and frequently mobile) devices to find information about potential purchases, even when they are in the store. So as far as consumers are concerned, the selling channels have already converged. As a result, retailers are now forced to catch up.

Dollar General is looking to drive increased participation in its digital coupon program by featuring several enhanced benefits during the month of October.

Hot on the heels of Google’s official launch of Android Pay, Samsung is officially entering the U.S. mobile payment market. Samsung Pay, which launched in South Korea in August, is now available for use by U.S. consumers.

Samsung Pay functionality is built into the hardware of Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge mobile devices. Samsung says Samsung Pay is the first and only mobile payment service that works with both near field communication (NFC) and card readers with magnetic secure transmission (MST) technologies, which means it is already compatible with most POS terminals.

Walmart has taken a big step towards becoming 100% supplied by renewable energy.

The discounter entered into a long-term power purchase agreement to buy the majority of the electricity generated by Pattern Energy Group’s new Logan's Gap Wind facility.

The 200 megawatt facility is in Comanche County, Texas.

The holiday season is rapidly approaching, so of course everyone is thinking about the latest trends in... retail IT. Okay, nobody outside of the industry has visions of technology solutions dancing in their heads, but retailers do need to know what is developing on the IT front as their busiest season arrives.

A new association of mobile and technology companies and associations is seeking greater openness in the mobile technology space. A coalition named Evolve is promoting the consumer benefits of unlicensed spectrum and new technologies for unlicensed spectrum like LTE-Unlicensed (LTE-U) and Licensed Assisted Access (LAA).

Proponents of the motto “image is everything” will be pleased with a new partnership eBay Enterprise is launching. The online retail platform is teaming up with visual commerce platform Curalate to give publishers the ability to drive traffic and revenue from images sourced from Instagram.

The partnership offers Curalate Like2Buy, which allows users to directly click to purchases from Instagram images, to more than 100,000 publishers in the eBay Enterprise Affiliate Network.