Data & Analytics

Same-store sales continue to decelerate at Whole Foods as the nation’s leading natural and organic grocer continues to face traffic and ticket pressures caused by upstart rivals and established competitors.

San Bruno, Calif. – WalmartLabs, the division of Wal-Mart’s e-commerce operation dedicated to developing new technology, has purchased Luvocracy, an online community that helps consumers find products recommended by family members, friends and online influencers. Founded three years ago, Luvocracy was one of the first companies to enable the entire social shopping experience, from discovery to commerce, to occur within its app.

Albany, N.Y. - Retailers can maximize revenue from drop-shipping by adding health and beauty supplies while staying away from electronics. By analyzing 750,000 products added by retailers on its merchandising and fulfillment platform in a 12-month period, CommerceHub found that the number of health and beauty supply products grew by 92% while increasing revenue in the product category by 130%.

Chicago – True Value Company posted a quarterly net margin of $23.2 million, down 2.5% compared to $23.8 million the prior year period in the second quarter of fiscal 2014. Revenue was $429.5 million, an increase of 4.5% from $411.2 million for the same period a year ago.

Same-store sales rose 4.2%. True Value Company’s expanded farm, ranch, automotive and pet product assortments, plus seasonal and plumbing categories, drove the majority of sales increases.

Fort Worth, Texas – Financial woes continue for RadioShack, which was recently notified it is in danger of being delisted by the New York Stock Exchange. According to a new report from Moody’s Investor Service, RadioShack is likely to run out cash by the end of October 2015.

New York - A majority of parents plan to spend more on their children's back-to-school shopping this year, driven by rising costs or necessity rather than greater spending power. According the Accenture Back-to-School Shopping Survey, which polled 500 U.S. parents of children entering kindergarten through college, nearly all (89%) plan to do most of their back-to-school shopping in a physical store, though many will still use online to browse and search, or "webrooming."

Bentonville, Ark. – Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has made a follow-on order for GenKey fuel cell units from Plug Power Inc. Wal-Mart will add an additional, seventh, GenKey site to the original six-site contract it announced in February 2014.

Houston -- Mattress Firm Holding Corp. has completed its rollout of Genesis Credit second-look financing, which is powered by Genesis Financial Solutions. Genesis Credit allows customers with less-than-perfect credit to purchase goods and services from any Mattress Firm location.

New York – Capgemini is releasing its new Integrated Procurement and All-Channel Experience solution, inPACE for NetSuite. The new offering helps retailers run more effective multichannel commerce processes by integrating their transaction, fulfillment, merchandise planning and order orchestration functions.

Boston -- The top company initiative among retail supply chain executives is “to enable a seamless customer experience online and in the store.” According to the new 2014 Supply Chain Benchmark Survey from Boston Retail Partners (BRP), this “unified commerce” initiative as the evolution of both multichannel and omnichannel retailing to provide a seamless shopping experience whether in the store, on the Web or anywhere customers choose to shop on their mobile devices.