Data & Analytics

New York -- U.S. retail and consumer  merger & acquisition activity during first quarter 2014 was primarily driven by five multibillion dollar transactions, with more than half aligned to the food and beverage sector, confirming a positive deals outlook for the year, according to PwC’s U.S. retail and consumer deals insights first quarter 2014 report.
   

Kroger will be the first in Oregon to deploy a fleet of heavy-duty trucks that run on liquid natural gas. The 40 trucks will replace 40 diesel trucks currently in use and are expected to start making store deliveries in the Portland metropolitan area by the end of 2014.

The use of natural gas fuel not only reduces operating costs for vehicles, but also reduces greenhouse gas emissions up to 23% in medium- to heavy-duty vehicles.

Boca Raton, Fla. -- Office Depot will close at least 400 U.S. stores during the next two years as part of its plan to consolidate operations after its acquisition of OfficeMax last November. The closings were not unexpected since there are many locations where the two brands have stores in close proximity to one another. The retailer also raised its full-year adjusted operating income forecast after reporting better-than-expected first quarter results amid cost cutting efforts.

Thanks to a partnership between Amazon and Twitter, people can now link their Twitter accounts to their Amazon accounts and shop for items by responding to any tweet with an Amazon product link and hashtag #AmazonCart.

Customers can link their accounts by going to Amazon.com/AmazonCart.

The tweet only adds an item to a consumer’s shopping cart, but consumers must log into Amazon to complete their purchases.

New York -- Duane Reade, a division of Walgreens, has released the first update to its app for iPhone including the integration of iBeacon for 10-select Duane Reade locations active as of May 1.

Austin, Texas -- Whole Foods Market on Tuesday reported a profit for its fiscal second quarter that fell short of Wall Street expectations. The grocery store operator also cut its outlook for the year.

For the quarter ended April 13, Whole Foods earned $142 million, unchanged from last year, amid higher expenses.

Revenue rose to $3.32 billion, short of the $3.34 billion Wall Street expected. Same-store sales rose 4.5%, hurt by the shift of Easter to the third quarter this year.

New York -- Amazon has entered into a partnership with Twitter whereby Twitter users can link their accounts to an Amazon account, and add items to the shopping cart by responding to any tweet with an Amazon product link that has the hashtag #AmazonCart.

In order to take advantage of the service, customers have to connect their Amazon account to their Twitter account, which they can do via amazon.com/AmazonCart.

Duane Reade has released the first update to its app for iPhone including the integration of iBeacon for 10 select Duane Reade locations active as of May 1.