Data & Analytics

Redwood City, Calif. - YottaMark Inc. has enhanced its ShopWell food nutrition app with weekly healthy eating advice from registered dietitians, personalized to the user's dietary goals. In response to member feedback, the ShopWell scoring algorithm has also been enhanced to include support for shoppers with vegetarian and vegan diets, and individuals trying to avoid corn.  

Menlo Park, Calif. -- Facebook Inc.’s revenue in the second quarter increased 61% to a better-than-expected $2.91 billion, up from $1.81 billion in the year-ago quarter, fueled by its fast-growing mobile advertising business.

Revenue from advertising was $2.68 billion, up 67% from last year. Mobile advertising revenue represented 62% of Facebook’s ad revenue in the second quarter, up from 41% in the year-ago period and 59% in first quarter 2014. Payments and other fees revenue was $234 million, a 9% increase from the same quarter last year.

New York -- Retail websites are getting slower … fast, according to a report by Radware, a provider of application delivery and application security solutions for virtual and cloud data centers. In just one year, median time to interact (TTI) has slowed down by 27% (from 4.9 seconds to 6.2 seconds), and median load time has suffered a 49% increase (from 7.2 seconds to 10.7 seconds).

New York -- Sainsbury’s has entered into a unique arrangement that closes the loop on food recycling. Its store in Cannock, Staffordshire, England, has come off the country’s national power grid for day-to-day electricity consumption and is running on power generated solely from food waste from Sainsbury’s supermarkets across the United Kingdom.

The new power supply was built in partnership with waste recycling company Biffa, and uses Biffa’s advanced anaerobic digestion (AD) facilities and a unique power link up.  

O’Reilly Automotive, the nation’s second largest auto parts retailer, said it is on track to open 200 new stores this year after posting its 22nd consecutive quarter of profit growth in excess of 15%.

Supervalu posted $5.23 billion in net sales for the first quarter, a decrease of 0.1% from $5.24 billion last year; but president and CEO Sam Duncan expressed confidence in the company’s performance, saying it is off to a solid start across business segments.

“Our first quarter results reflect the investments we are making this year to position the company for future success and I am pleased with our operating performance,” said Duncan.

Despite a still-challenging economic climate, Loblaw’s profit in the second quarter beat analysts’ expectations, and was bolstered by strong sales in its recently acquired Shoppers Drug Mart.

Sales at the pharmacy and beauty retailer, which contributed to Loblaw’s net sales for the first time this quarter, accounted for more than a quarter of the food retailer’s total sales of C$10.31 billion in the quarter.

Revenue optimization services provider Extraprise is rebranding as QuickPivot and launching a new real-time, cross-channel marketing platform to support lifecycle marketing.

The new QuickPivot platform enables marketers to derive customer insight, listen to brand interactions and then adapt campaigns with highly optimized messages and offers to create seamless buying experiences.

Once again, weak ammunition, shooting, optics and firearm sales at Cabela's caused comparable-store sales to slip 14.2%. But CEO Tommy Millner focused on positives, such as new store performance.

Rite Aid has appointed former Roundy’s executive Darren Karst as EVP and CFO, effective Aug. 20, to succeed Frank Vitrano, who has announced he will retire in Sept. 2015. Karst will report to Rite Aid’s chairman and CEO John Standley.

Karst will be responsible for all aspects of the company’s finance, accounting, treasury, tax, investor relations, legal, risk management, internal assurance and asset protection functions.