Data & Analytics

Digital interactions influence 36 cents of every dollar spent in the retail store, or approximately $1.1 trillion, according to the latest study from Deloitte Digital. The study also found that by the end of 2014, that number will climb to 50%, or $1.5 trillion of total store sales.

The study, "The New Digital Divide," quantifies the extent to which consumers' use of desktop and laptop computers, tablets and smartphones influences brick-and-mortar store sales.

San Francisco - Although 77% of top online retailers have published a mobile app and 62% of them prompt users to opt into push notifications, many of them are missing a significant opportunity to perform push communications. According to new data from mobile analytics provider Other Levels, only 31% of the top 100 online retailers actually sent a message through push notification.

However, Other Levels data shows that 70% of consumers are open to receiving mobile push notifications. Additional findings include:

Toronto - OfficeMax Grand & Toy, an affiliate of Office Depot, Inc., will close all of its 19 Canadian retail stores. OfficeMax Grand & Toy will continue to service its business customers via the company’s e-commerce website, customer service centers and direct sales representatives.

Washington, D.C. - The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged a former executive with insider trading in advance of EBay’s acquisition of the e-commerce company GSI Commerce where he worked, by tipping friends and relatives with confidential information about the pending deal so they could attain more than $300,000 in illegal profits.

Charlottesville, Va. – Crutchfield Corp. has adopted the new integrated 360pi-Displaydata solution to realize in-store dynamic pricing. 360pi is working with Displaydata to incorporate Electronic Shelf Labeling (ESL) to give physical stores the ability to employ dynamic pricing.

The new solution is designed to provide retailers with the ability to automate and increase the frequency of in-store price updates without the cost, time, effort and error associated with manual price changes

Jacksonville, Fla. – The board of directors of Stein Mart Inc. has created the office of the president and have appointed D. Hunt Hawkins and Brian R. Morrow to share that office. Both will continue to report to Jay Stein, CEO.

New York - Dynamic retail marketing agency TPN is hiring analytics industry veteran Taymour Matin as managing director, data and analytics, a newly created position. Previously, analytics folded into TPN's planning and perspectives team, but as part of TPN's growth strategy, the new department has been created to better capitalize on the agency's proprietary research and technology-driven retail analytical capabilities.

Austin, Texas – Performance marketing solutions provider iProspect has launched "Search-Powered Social, a hosted service that utilizes data captured via paid search through Facebook's Website Custom Audiences offering. This allows marketers to build lookalike audiences on Facebook, which target segments resembling a brand's most loyal consumers.

By Bret Cunningham, president, BestFit Mobile

Miami – Consolidated net income at Burger King Worldwide Inc. grew 68.7% year-over-year during the first quarter of fiscal 2014, rising to $60.4 million from $35.8 million. In the same period, total revenues fell 26.5% to $240.9 million from $327.7 million.

Systemwide same-store sales grew 2%. Burger King cited severe weather as negatively affecting North American sales, as well as the net refranchising of 327 company-owned stores during the quarter. The retailer attributed its net income growth to improvement in overseas EBITDA performance.