Data & Analytics

Seattle – Director Martin Scorcese is renowned for providing great soundtracks to his films, and Starbucks Coffee Co. is attempting to follow in his footsteps in its stores. Starbucks and music streaming service Spotify will establish a multi-year relationship that will link its 7,000 U.S. company-operated stores in the U.S. and My Starbucks Rewards loyalty members with Spotify’s global users.  

With a title like chief retail innovation officer, Kasey Lobaugh spends a lot of time peering into the future to assess where the retail industry is headed.

The principal with Deloitte Consulting did just that May 18 at Manhattan Associates annual Momentum conference where he elaborated on new research showing that digital interactions are expected to influence 64 cents of every dollar spent in retail stores by the end of 2015, or roughly $2.2 trillion.

By Jeff Collins

As other major retailers report sluggish sales, home improvement stores such as Home Depot Inc. are benefitting from rebounds in the housing market and the weather.

Houston – Specialty accessory retailer Charming Charlie is supporting international growth by moving its POS operations to the cloud. Charming Charlie has moved to a cloud strategy that leverages the POS engine in the cloud, but provides offline capabilities in the event the store loses cloud connectivity.

The CEO of Urban Outfitters sounded a positive note about the company's omnichannel strategy despite reporting mixed financial results in the first quarter.

Beaverton, Ore. - Richard King, former president and COO of Albertsons Inc., has been elected to the Digimarc board of directors. His 45 years of retail, consumer products and food industry experience will provide advice Digimarc expands its involvement in the retail industry with its barcode technology.

Framingham, Mass. – The TJX Cos. enjoyed a successful first quarter of fiscal 2016 that included profit results surpassing Wall Street expectations. TJX reported net income of $474.6 million, up 4% from $454.32 million a year earlier.

Growth in expenses and cost of sales did not keep pace with revenue growth, resulting in higher pretax income that fueled the profit increase. Net sales rose 6% to $6.86 billion from $6.49 billion. Total same-store sales growth of 5%, driven by increased customer traffic, helped boost revenue.