Data & Analytics

San Jose – Brick-and-mortar retail sales soared during this past spring, according to new metrics from RetailNext. Using its in-store analytics platform to collect metrics on millions of shopping trips to department stores and specialty retailers nationwide, RetailNext studied and released its analysis of traffic, conversion, sales, and average transaction values (ATV) for the spring season, including the four holidays of Easter, Mother’s Day, Memorial Day and Father’s Day, as well as the days leading up to Father’s Day and Easter Sunday.

Seattle – Starbucks has enacted small increases in the prices of less than one-third of its beverages in select markets. The increases, which average about 1%, affect smaller sizes of brewed coffee, tea, latte and espresso drinks. Larger venti- and grande-sized drinks will not have their prices changed.

Seattle – Brad Smith, president and CEO of Intuit Inc., has joined the board of directors of Nordstrom. Smith, who has been with Intuit since 2003, was named president and CEO in 2008. Prior to joining Intuit, Smith held sales, marketing and management roles with companies including ADP, PepsiCo, Seven-Up and Advo. He is also a former director of Yahoo.

Framingham, Mass. – Staples has reached the milestone of having 500 buildings meet EPA Energy Star certification. The facilities include stores, distribution centers and sales offices nationwide. Staples also launched a goal to reach 1,000 Energy Star facilities by the end of 2016.

Knoxville, Tenn. – Ruby Tuesday is streamlining facilities management activities across its 750 U.S. stores with the Web-based facilities services management platform from ServiceChannel. The ServiceChannel suite will aid Ruby Tuesday in executing such tasks as management of service requests, work orders, invoicing, payment, finding and managing contractors, repair and maintenance, and other facility issues.

Kansas City, Mo. – Hallmark Cards has named Claire Hughes Johnson, VP at Google, to its board of directors. Johnson, who has been with Google since 2004, currently runs its Google Offers mobile-to-store business and also has led global online sales and the new products and solutions teams, as well as teams responsible for Gmail, Google Wallet and Google Apps. Before Google, Johnson’s experience includes serving as a management consultant.

Annual study tracks cost of building and outftting stores

The cost of building and outfitting stores is on the rise, according to Chain Store Age's 2013 Store Construction and Outfitting Survey.

Austin, Texas – Digital coupon provider RetailMeNot is expanding into Canada with the launch of its new RetailMeNot.ca site. The site provides Canadian consumers with access to thousands of digital coupons for more than 6,000 retailers doing business in Canada.