Data & Analytics

Costa Mesa, Calif. – Almost half of holiday marketing campaigns will start before Halloween, according to a survey of 200 marketers by Experian Marketing Services.

In addition, the study shows that the first 15 days of November are the most popular time to launch a holiday-themed campaign.

Other results include:

New York – Men are highly engaged shoppers, with 63% of men actively looking for in-store sales and 53% regularly using coupons, according to WSL’s “How America Shops: Men & Shopping Report.” The study also shows that 67% of Millennial men use mobile phones to shop, compared to 52% of Gen X men and 29% of Baby Boomer men.

Fort Worth, Texas – Pier 1 Imports, Inc. substantially missed expectations with a 32% decline in net income for the second quarter of fiscal 2014 compared to the same period last year. Net income totaled $17.8 million in the most recent fiscal quarter, down from $26.2 million.

Total sales were $395.6 million, a 7.6% increase from $367.6 million a year earlier. Comparable store sales increased 3.5% during the second quarter.

Dodgeville, Wis. -- Lands' End has launched an easier and more efficient online shopping experience for international customers. Customers can now view local pricing the same way they would if they were ordering from a local site.

U.S. prices on landsend.com can be converted into more than 60 local currencies.

In addition, all fees (duty, tax and shipping) will be displayed and included in the order total at checkout.

Atlanta - Shopko has selected Innotrac and Micros as its new e-commerce solution. The Shopko e-commerce site is powered by Micros on the front end with Innotrac's OMS, CRM, fulfillment and business intelligence on the back end.

West Chester, Pa. – QVC has promoted John Cowan to the position of senior VP, information technology global services. Cowan was most recently VP global systems & initiatives.

Since joining in QVC in 1994, Cowan has held positions of increasing responsibility, including VP, business strategy and technology integration, and VP of business technology. He also played a key role in the start-up of QVC in Germany and Japan, and recently assisted QVC Italy in deploying a new systems release in September 2012.

Deerfield Park, Ill. – Walgreens has entered into a multi-year agreement to provide Inovalon's data-driven encounter support platform, Electronic Patient Assessment Solution Suite (ePASS) within healthcare clinics at select Walgreens to support improvements in managed care quality and performance.

The ePASS platform allows identification and resolution of gaps in quality, care, assessment, documentation, and risk score accuracy, as well as analytical capabilities. It will be rolled out at 400 stores nationwide.

Pennsauken, N.J. – Becker’s School Supplies has redeveloped and relaunched its e-commerce site on the WebLinc e-commerce platform.

The WebLinc platform provides both front-end branding and back-end merchandising and management tools. Within months of launching its new site, Becker’s experienced a 120% jump in revenue compared to the same period last year and saw transaction volume increase by 81%.

By Jeff Wakefield, Verifone

Mobility. It is such a broad concept, meaning different things to merchants and consumers. Mobile acceptance, mobile payments, mobile POS, mobile shopping – each plays a distinct part in the overall mobile experience and each has different risks and rewards.

Within this larger mobile arena, the security of the mobile payment device offers the greatest risk for both merchants and consumers alike.

New York -- Retail is the No. 1 category utilizing location-powered advertising, with big box, consumer electronics and department store retailers being the most frequent users, according to a new report by location-based mobile advertising firm Verve Mobile.

The "State of the Market: Location Powered Mobile Advertising, Deep Dive on Retail" study reveals that geo-fencing, which includes geo-conquesting, is the most utilized location targeting strategy deployed by retailers.  I

In other findings: