Data & Analytics

Prescription counts decreased a little and pharmacy same-store sales were up in August, according to numbers reported by Rite Aid Thursday.

As many of us grasp at the last moments of summer, those in the retail industry have one eye on the end of the year -- the time between November and December. It makes sense: holiday shoppers spent over $616 billion dollars just last year between Black Friday and Christmas. And while the ample time and resources spent on these two annual marketing priorities is certainly deserved, it is easy to put all of our eggs in this basket, accidentally neglecting the major retailing opportunity just around the corner -- the first quarter.

Philadelphia – Marketers are largely not conscious of the full potential social images (such as Instagram posts) hold for their email marketing efforts.

According to new research from Curalate and Movable Ink, while 76% of marketer emails include social media buttons, only 14% include social images.

Despite reporting ho-hum sales for July, Costco said Thursday that its comps for the fourth quarter and fiscal year were up an impressive 6%.

Lincolnshire, Ill. – Reports of the store’s demise are greatly exaggerated.

According to the annual Global Shopper Study from mobile solutions provider Zebra Technologies Corp., more than three-quarters (76%) of shoppers feel positive about shopping in stores and nearly one-half think that technology solutions are helping retailers enable and improve their shopping experience.

A rapidly expanding retailer led by a former top Walmart executive is supposed to produce strong same store sales growth, leverage expenses and increase profits. So why isn’t Five Below?

Joel Anderson’s tenure as CEO of value priced retailer Five Below (where everything cost less than $5) is off to an uneven start. The company is achieving its profitability targets, but doing so with productivity improvement in its selling space that is surprisingly weak given the newness of its store base.

Woonsocket, R.I. – When consumers have less access to cigarettes, they smoke fewer of them.

This is the basic conclusion of a new report from CVS Health showing that overall cigarette sales fell in 13 states where CVS has more than a 15% market share.

Milpitas, Calif. – Lowe’s Companies Inc. is strengthening its support of the ZWave wireless Internet of Things (IoT) standard.

Lowe’s has joined The Z-Wave Alliance, a global consortium of more than 325 member companies, with its Iris smart home solution.

Launched in July 2012, Iris by Lowe's is a smart home solution created to monitor and control virtually everything in the home anytime, anywhere from a computer, smart phone or tablet.