Data & Analytics

Seattle – Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba Holding Group Ltd. has disclosed it holds a 9.3% stake in online retailer Zulily. Alibaba has purchased about 4.8 million class A shares for $56 million. This represents about 17% of Zulily’s Class A stock.

Albertslund, Denmark -- Kvickly Supermarkets, part of Danish grocery retailer Coop Denmark, will implement Displaydata’s Chroma electronic shelf labers (ESLs) across 29 of its store locations. Coop Denmark, in partnership with Displaydata’s partner Delfi Technologies, has already implemented ESLs in more than 300 of its stores, including brands: Kvickly, SuperBrugsen, Dagli’ Brugsen and Irma.

Surging sales at Old Navy helped Gap Inc. offset sales declines at its namesake division and its Banana Republic stores in the first quarter.

Gap Inc. reported that for the first quarter of fiscal 2015, Gap Inc.’s net sales decreased 3% to $3.66 billion compared with $3.77 billion for the first quarter last year.

The theme of SAP’s annual Sapphire conference, in Orlando, Florida, was “Run Simple.” SAP focused on how its HANA business intelligence platform and growing number of HANA-powered applications can assist companies with the complicated task of creating simple enterprises that run on real-time data.

However, underneath the SAP-specific information was a lot of more general insight into how IT is disrupting the way businesses operate and engage their customers. Following are three insights with particular relevance for retailers.

Asheville, N.C. – A significant increase in gain from the disposal of assets helped boost net income 37% at Ingles Markets Inc. in the second quarter of fiscal 2015 to $14.3 million, from $10.5 million in the same quarter a year earlier. Lower gasoline prices helped reduce net sales 3% to $915.3 million, from $947.76 million.

Excluding gasoline, same-store sales rose 1.2%.

By Nader Fathi

New York -- Commercial real estate services firm DTZ, which is backed by private-equity firm TPG, has entered into a deal to acquire rival Cushman & Wakefield Inc. for $2 billion.

The combined company will have 43,000 employees, annual revenues of more than $5.5 billion and manage more than 4 billion square feet of real estate globally.  It will operate under the Cushman & Wakefield name.

Loehmann's has added a new e-commerce chief to help build the next phase of the off-price retailer's online marketplace.

Loehmann's said that Jeffrey Cripe is joining the Loehmann's advisory board. Cripe, who manages e-commerce partnerships and business development at Christie's, has experience in e-commerce, branding, audience development, and strategic partnerships.