Data & Analytics

Chris Saridakis, president of eBay Enterprise, a division of eBay, has resigned for personal reasons, according to the company.

An external search will be conducted for a successor, the company said. Until the search is completed, Tobias Hartmann, VP, omnichannel operations and international, will serve as the company’s interim head.

Saridakis had served as president of eBay Enterprise since June 2011, following the company’s acquisition of GSI Commerce (renamed eBay Enterprise in 2013), where he was part of that company’s management team.

Washington, D.C. -- Two U.S. senators have written to Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel seeking "detailed information'' on the data breach that occurred during the holiday shopping season, Reuters reported.

"We ask that Target's information-security officials provide a briefing to committee staff regarding your company's investigation and latest findings,'' John Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, and Claire McCaskill, chair of the Commerce ubcommittee on consumer protection, wrote to Steinhafel.

Phoenix -- PetSmart Inc. announced changes to its management team in conjunction with the retirement of its president and COO, Joseph O’Leary.

PetSmart CEO, David Lenhardt, will assume the title of president and CEO when O’Leary steps down. The company will not replace the COO position. Instead it will realign the responsibilities among four newly created executive VP positions, with Lenhardt assuming the title of president and CEO, with the changes effective April 4, 2014.   

New York -- Despite severe winter weather travails during the holiday shopping season, the National Retail Federation said Tuesday that December retail sales didn’t take the hit that many feared.

In fact, taking advantage of heavy promotions and last-minute deals, shoppers were able to move the December retail sales needle up 0.4% month-to-month, excluding automobiles, gas stations and restaurants, and up 4.6% year-over-year.



By Lee Peterson, WD Partners

If a sacred cow exists among retail strategists today, the price-match is undoubtedly it. As the weapon of first resort, it is the most obvious defense against the rapid rise of “showrooming” and the unbridled growth of online retailing behemoths like Amazon, ruthlessly cutting into retailers’ profits.

New York – Nicolas Franchet, head of e-commerce global vertical marketing at Facebook, said that compression of screen sizes as consumers switch to mobile devices is the biggest upcoming challenge retailers will face during a session titled “Data the Matters: The Future of Personalization” at the NRF 2014 Conference & Exposition on Sunday, Jan. 12.

Minneapolis -- Target Corp. will invest $5 million in a multi-year campaign to educate consumers about cybersecurity and the dangers of phishing scams.

New York -- VeriFone Systems said that Deckers Outdoor Corporation has implemented VeriFone mobile retailing hardware and software to fulfill its omni-channel initiative at 40 UGG Australia store locations. The solution enables store associates to accept payments from the sales floor and sell out of stock products available online through its integration with an e-commerce platform from Demandware.
 

New York -- SAP AG  announced the launch of SAP Shopper Experience a personalized and engaging retail mobile app that transforms the entire consumer shopping experience with social media sharing, loyalty programs and a self-payment system for shoppers.

SAP also released the latest version of the SAP Retail Store Ops Associate mobile app, which allows store associates to execute core merchandising, inventory and customer service functions directly from the shop floor without leaving a consumer’s side.

New York -- GE Capital and Kobie Marketing, a loyalty program service provider, will unveil a new product to help retailers establish and maintain loyalty programs that will create a unified profile for shoppers, according to a report by the New York Times.