Data & Analytics

Salt Lake City – A 23% increase in Overstock.com’s sales and marketing expense helped reduce its second quarter fiscal 2014 net income to $1.9 million, down 48% from $3.7 million in the same period a year earlier. Revenue grew 13% to $332.5 million, from $293.2 million.

Patrick M. Byrne, CEO and chairman of Overstock.com, cited increases in technology spending as helping the company to quickly conceive and execute new ideas such as a recently launched consumer credit facility.

Salt Lake City - Overstock.com Inc. has augmented its wish list feature with wedding, baby and special occasion registries. When creating a registry, customers are offered recommendations of top sellers within the Overstock GiftFinder for wedding, baby, housewarming, graduation, birthday or other special occasion categories.

St. Louis – Build-A-Bear Workshop Inc. reduced its net loss to $4.3 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2014 from $6.2 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2013.

Consolidated net sales fell 7.7% to $75.4 million, from $80.4 million. Consolidated same-store sales dropped 4.9%.

Build-A-Bear cited the net closure of 10 stores from the prior year as helping to reduce revenues. CEO Sharon John said the company is poised for a strong second half of the fiscal year.

Miami -- Ryder System, a leader in commercial fleet management and supply chain management solutions, announced the launch of its new “That’s Ryder” brand advertising campaign. The campaign, the first of its kind for Ryder in nearly two decades, includes the debut of a new tagline for the company – Ever better.

Clearwater, Fla. – MarineMax reported net income of $11.5 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2014, down 16% from $13.63 million a year earlier. A substantial increase in selling, general and administrative expenses drove the net income decrease.

Marinemax fared better in revenue, which grew approximately 22% to $214.4 million for the quarter compared with $175.8 million for the comparable quarter the prior year. Same-store sales increased approximately 22%.

Chicago – Physical stores continue to be customers’ preferred shopping channel and a place where the most significant consumer and retailer value is created, according to a new report by A.T. Kearney.

The firm’s “Omnichannel Shopping Preferences Study” found that stores play a crucial role in online purchases, as two-thirds of customers purchasing online use a physical store before or after the transaction. The survey covered all age segments — teens, Millennials, generation X, baby boomers, and seniors.

Eden Prairie, Minn. – The loss of a large tax benefit caused Supervalu’s net income to plummet 49% in the first quarter of fiscal 2015 to $43 million from $85 million in the year-ago period.

Revenue slipped to $5.23 billion from $5.24 billion.

London -- Fifty-four percent of online shoppers feel that they are more conscious of their security online compared to 12 months ago, following a string of high-profile security breaches at various international retailers and brands. Of the 2,000 online consumers surveyed as part of EDigitalResearch's and IMRG's EcustomerServiceIndex, half (50%) felt that retailers should be doing more to keep them safe online, especially in the wake of yet more data and security breaches in 2014.

Dallas -- Corner Bakery Café has implemented Altametrics' E-Restaurant and E-SmartClock solutions to improve labor, food, human resources and administrative costs at all of its cafes, with full launch beginning in August. After a three-month test in 10 company-owned stores, Corner Bakery Cafe implemented ESmartClock technology, which features an easy-to-use touch-screen and provides real-time visibility, monitoring and alerting of critical labor elements such as proactive notification of an employee approaching overtime.

San Jose, Calif. – EBay is offering $3.48 billion in debt bonds in a sale that will close July 28. EBay intends to use the net proceeds from the offering, for general corporate purposes including loan repayments.

$400 million of the debt will mature in 2017, with the rest coming due in stages through 2024.