Data & Analytics

The fall is always a busy time for new store openings as retailers head into their biggest selling season of the year. The five below are generating big buzz….as is the bonus one at the end.

1. Starbucks Reserve Roastery & Tasting Toom, Seattle
The coffee giant spared no expense on its newest retail concept—the space is spectacular.  Two years in the making, the Roastery is part retail store and part manufacturing facility—and all theatre.

Year-over-year (YOY) retail dollar volume from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday grew 5.3%, a decrease from last year’s growth of 7.4%, according to First Data 2014 SpendTrend Holiday Shopping Spend Analysis, which examined consumer spending from more than one million merchant locations over the five-day period.Similarly, retail transaction growth was 5.0% compared to 6.0% in 2013.  

Eastern Mountain Sports has enlisted JustEnough Software Corp., a leading provider of demand management solutions for retail, wholesale and direct-to-consumer businesses worldwide, to improve its inventory capabilities for its brick-and-mortar as well as its Internet site.

Cincinnati - Phillips Edison & Company announced a partnership with the LOC Card, a consumer engagement platform from LOC Enterprises which allows customers to participate in merchants’ loyalty programs and access their data and information from each program all in one place.    

Toronto, Canada - Danier Leather is going for both form and function with a new POS rollout. The retailer's flagship store at the Toronto Eaton Centre, Toronto, has implemented Fujitsu TeamPOS 7000 All-In-One (AIO) hardware. The solution offers faster and sleeker point of sale technology and the capability to integrate with future omnichannel offerings to enhance usability, increase sales capacity and improve the consumer experience, according to Fujitsu.    

Easy access to an expanded offering of online inventory is the premise behind Staples Exchange, a marketplace-like concept that allows suppliers to leverage Staples’ online presence.

Staples doesn’t call its new Staples Exchange a marketplace – the term used by Amazon to describe the massive aggregation of third party sellers on its site – but rather and a world-class platform that makes it easy for suppliers to offer products to Staples customers.

As holiday shoppers hunted for online deals Thanksgiving weekend the Overstock.com Web site provided fertile hunting grounds.

The retailer said its sales between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday increased 23 percent compared to the same period the prior year. In addition to new customers, the increase was driven by an 8 percent increase in average individual order size. Cyber Monday sales increased 24 percent while Thanksgiving day saw the largest gain, up 38 percent off of a smaller initial base than Cyber Monday.

Nashville, Tenn. — Genesco Inc. announced that James S. Gulmi, senior VP and CFO, will retire at the end of its current fiscal year.  He will be succeeded as CFO by Mimi E. Vaughn, the company's current senior VP —strategy and shared services.   Gulmi, who has served as Genesco's CFO since 1986, will continue as senior advisor to the company for at least the  next year.