Data & Analytics

Hoffman Estates, Ill. -- Sears Holdings is extending its Shop Your Way membership program with a major expansion of its rewards program with the addition of more than 50 brand-name partners. Once the exclusive membership program of Sears, Kmart and Lands' End, Shop Your Way will not include more partners in more categories.

San Jose, Calif. - For the month of June, soccer-related searches across the U.S. sites of eight international sporting goods and apparel retailers increased by 280%, compared to May. According to analysis from SLI Systems, there were more than 2.2 million U.S. soccer-related product searches from these eight e-commerce sites alone, with a corresponding boost in online shopping behavior during June for products including soccer cleats, balls, shin guards, gloves and other equipment.

Chicago – Mobile is the most popular technology for e-commerce retailers to make a significant investment in. According to the 14th Annual Merchant Survey from The E-Tailing Group, 42% of respondents have made significant investments in mobile optimization.

Bebe is looking to carve out a place for itself in the e-commerce market and to that end is honing its online and mobile strategy.

The retailer has selected Digital Experience Management (DXM) platform provider Qubit to provide a wide reaching and bespoke A/B testing, website optimization and personalization program designed to increase conversion rates. It also plans to launch a new responsive mobile site in the near future.

Dodgeville, Wis. -- Lands’ End has brought on San Francisco-based Secret Sauce Partners to help improve the retailer’s online shopping experience.

Lands’ End has deployed Secret Sauce’s Fit Predictor service, which proactively finds a customer's best fit in seconds using existing data, without the need for physical measurements.  

By Mark McCurley, IDT911 Consulting

Washington, D.C. - The National Retail Federation (NRF) has hired Paul G. Martino as VP and senior policy counsel, and promoted Beth Provenzano to VP for federal government relations. Martino and Provenzano will work with the NRF Government Relations Department and focus on emerging public policy priorities, including data security, payments, mobile and e-commerce, privacy and patent reform.

The Container Store saw same-store sales in the first quarter slip 0.8%, putting an end to a 16-quarter streak.

“We thought our sluggish sales were all because of weather and calendar shifts that began last November and continued into the spring, but now we’ve come to realize it’s more than weather and calendar. Consistent with so many of our fellow retailers, we are experiencing a retail ‘funk,’” said chairman and CEO Kip Tindell.