Data & Analytics

Cupertino, Calif. – Apple Inc. has reportedly opened a digital store on the Chinese online marketplace Tmall. According to the Wall Street Journal, the design of the Tmall digital store is similar to the design of Apple’s own Chinese e-commerce site.

Atlanta – Havertys reported partial financial results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2013, with sales for the fourth quarter increasing 7.6% to $196.2 million, compared with $182.3 million for the fourth quarter of 2012. On a same-store basis, sales for the quarter increased 9.5%.

Sales for the 12 months of 2013 totaled $746.1 million, compared with $670.1 million in 2012, representing an increase of 11.3%. On a same-store basis, sales increased 11% for the 12 months.

Brentwood, Tenn. -- Tractor Supply Company is renewing its Revionics Price Optimization license for three years and expanding the partnership to include the use of Revionics Markdown Optimization. Tractor Supply has used Revionics Price Optimization for regular price management and optimization during the past three years to drive regionalized, shopper-centric everyday value pricing.

Stamford, Conn. -- Design Within Reach, Inc., a multi-channel retailer of modern furniture, selected NetSuite as its core business management platform to support the company's growth. Design Within Reach plans to begin by leveraging NetSuite to power its core financials/ERP, inventory management, point-of-sale and order management processes.

Palo Alto, Calif. – Symphony EYC is introducing Symphony EYC Insights 2 Execution, a new cloud-based category collaboration platform that enables retailers and CPG manufacturers to adopt best practices in category management. The platform’s initial release, iAssort, provides users with browser-based access to their information to build strategic localized assortments that are space-aware.

Chicago -- Despite the shortened holiday season and extreme weather in many areas of the country in the weeks leading up to Christmas, retailers finished the 2013 holiday shopping season with increased sales. According to ShopperTrak, during the holiday shopping season of November and December 2013, national retail sales increased 2.7% and foot traffic decreased 14.6% when compared to the same two months of 2012.

The Container Store posted a better than expected profit performance during its first quarter as a public company but offered a full year outlook analysts found underwhelming.

Despite the short holiday season, December was still the biggest shopping month of the year.

Shopper traffic up more than one-third over November

J.C. Penney provided an ambiguous update on its holiday season performance, indicating it showed continued progress in its turnaround efforts and was “pleased” with its performance.

The company released a brief and vague statement Wednesday morning in which it noted, “customers responded well to the company’s offerings this holiday season, both in stores and online.”

Efficient Collaborative Retail Marketing on Wednesday unveiled the ECRM Data website, ECRMData.com. ECRM Data is an industry solution that offers turnkey solutions for promotional tracking and analysis functions.