Data & Analytics

By Niclas Qvist, Pricer

Philadelphia -- Five Below Inc. reported Wednesday a profit of $1.6 million, compared with a loss of $1.2 million in the year-ago period.

The discount retailer saw sales during the quarter rise 33% to $95.6 million from $71.8 million, meeting internal expectations but beating Wall Street’s forecasted $93.9 million in revenue. Same-store sales advanced 4.2%.

According to president and CEO Thomas Vellios, Five Below will open another 60 stores by the end of 2013.

Washington, D.C. -- A report released Thursday by the Commerce Dept. said that retail sales in the U.S. gained 0.6% in May, more than forecast and likely boosted by increased hiring during the month.

The increase was the largest in three months and followed a 0.1% advance in April. Bloomberg economists called for a 0.4% increase. The figures used to calculate economic growth, which exclude categories such as automobiles, climbed 0.3%.

EVANSVILLE, Ind. — Shoe Carnival has appointed Kent Zimmerman as VP of e-commerce. Zimmerman will oversee the company’s e-commerce and omnichannel strategies.

The Container Store has turned to Usablenet, a mobile and multichannel technology provider, to upgrade its mobile Web site so the retailer can provide its customers with a seamless mobile shopping experience.

The retail industry is one sector where cash remains king and will continue to be ubiquitous for years to come. Yet despite this, the domain of cash management still remains a major challenge for retailers with cash being expensive to process and secure.

Minneapolis -- The Target board of directors demonstrated confidence in the company’s cash generating capabilities on Wednesday and agreed to up the company’s quarterly dividend 19% to 43 cents a share.
 
The hefty increase ups the annual payout to $1.72 and moves the company closer to a long-term commitment to increase the full-year dividend amount to $3 by 2017. In addition, the company has established a target of growing earnings per share to $8 over the same time frame, up from $4.26 last year.

North Wilkesboro, N.C. – Despite discussions about the need for retailers to develop a “social media strategy,” the reality is that social media is not a monolithic entity. Different social media platforms reach different types of consumers, are used for different purposes and draw traffic at different times of the day. Thus, a social media strategy really needs to be a collection of smaller strategies that are built around the dynamics of each individual platform a retailer chooses to leverage.

Chicago -- Omnichannel specialty apparel retailer Threadless takes an active approach to Twitter marketing that has resulted in significant lifts in site traffic and customer engagement. At the recent Internet Retailer conference in Chicago, representatives from Threadless and Twitter discussed how retailers can get more from their Twitter campaigns.

“Every tweet was a call to action,” said Threadless Marketing Director Todd Lido. “We were seeing growth but it felt like the strategy was getting stale.”