Data & Analytics

Arlington, Va. -- The Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) and global sustainability non-profit Forum for the Future have launched a project to empower sustainability initiatives, Retail Horizons. The project is being launched ahead of the RILA 2014 Retail Sustainability Conference held from Sept. 29 to Oct. 2, in Minneapolis. Click here for a two-minute video on the program.  

Seattle -- Amazon.com is expanding its relationship with Twitter. Amazon’s new #AmazonWishList allows customers to add items to their Amazon Wish List without ever leaving Twitter.

Customers who discover a Tweet from their favorite artist, expert, brand, or friend with an Amazon.com product link, can add “#AmazonWishList” to the reply on Twitter and the product is added to their Amazon Wish List.

Arlington, Va. -- Pentagon Row, the outdoor shopping and residential center in Pentagon City, Virginia, has installed nearly 2,000 parking space sensors. The sensors, which are located in each of the facility’s parking spaces, record whether a space is occupied, forwarding that information to illuminated signs and the Pentagon Row mobile parking app which direct parkers to the closest available spaces to their final shopping destination.

Washington, D.C. – Total Halloween spending will reach $7.4 billion. According to the National Retail Federation (NRF) Halloween Consumer Spending Survey conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics, the average person will spend $77.52 this Halloween, compared to $75.03 the prior year.

Chicago – One-in-two marketers report that fragmented technologies impede their ability to create a consistent experience for consumers across the Web, mobile and other channels. According to a survey of 281 marketers in 16 countries released by cross-channel technology provider Signal, 90% of marketers believe that connecting the disparate tools in their company's marketing technology stack would improve their ability to innovate, personalize consumer interactions, send timely messages, boost loyalty, evaluate campaigns, and increase return on marketing investments.

By John Bajorek, WD Partners

The only reason for time, Albert Einstein once observed, is so that everything doesn’t happen at once. While it still holds true for the rest of life, shopping is another story.

By Steve Sensing, VP, Ryder System

Bentonville, Ark. – Wal-Mart Stores is moving deeper into financial services. The retailer is launching an exclusive checking account product, called GoBank, with Green Dot Corp., a prepaid-cards specialist that has a subsidiary bank. Wal-Mart already offers a prepaid debit card, credit card, check cashing and money transfers.

Oklahoma City, Okla. – In a Sept. 23 webinar hosted by Chain Store Age and sponsored by Microsoft Dynamics and Junction Solutions, marital arts training equipment retailer Century Martial Arts explained how by using a Microsoft Dynamics AX business intelligence platform, it is able to better track trends and predict future performance.

London - Shopitize, a U.K.-based provider of mobile, interactive shopping intelligence, is using Tableau's visual analytics to provide actionable insight into consumers' brand-specific shopping baskets. Shopitize is providing brand partners with access to real-time retail intelligence.