Data & Analytics

Atlanta – The Home Depot has acquired Houston-based window coverings retailer Blinds.com. As The Home Depot continues to implement its interconnected retail strategy, the company will work with Blinds.com to expand its technology into Homedepot.com and the company's stores with the goal of improving the entire end-to-end buying process for window coverings.

The Blinds.com management team and staff will remain intact at its headquarters in Houston. The acquisition closed Jan. 23 and terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Procter & Gamble said second-quarter results were in line with company expectations, and projected solid growth for the second half of the fiscal year.

Second-quarter net totaled $22.3 billion, unchanged from the year-ago period. Organic sales grew 3%.

Diluted net earnings per share were $1.18, a decrease of 15% versus a base period that included a 21 cents per share holding gain resulting from P&G’s purchase of the balance of its baby care and feminine care joint venture in Iberia.

Washington, D.C. – The FBI has reportedly issued a confidential report to U.S. retailers warning that more cyber attacks like the ones recently suffered by Target and Neiman Marcus will occur. According to Reuters, the three-page report was distributed Jan. 17 and informs retailers that the FBI has discovered in the past year there have been at least 20 attacks using the same type of malware used against Target.

Atlanta -- Global Payments Inc. will acquire Payment Processing, Inc. (PayPros). PayPros, based in California, is a provider of fully-integrated payment solutions for 58,000 small-to-medium sized retailers in the U.S.  

As senior editor of Chain Store Age it is my pleasure to welcome you to the first edition of our new Customer Disruption e-newsletter. Every other Thursday, I will be presenting you with content from the Chain Store Age website and magazine highlighting how retailers are using technology to provide customers with the type of seamless, personalized shopping experience they have come to expect.

Although Starbucks’ profit in the first quarter rose a better-than-expected 25% to $540.7 million from $432 million in the year-ago period, same-store sales missed Wall Street expectations.

Same-store sales rose 5%, beneath Wall Street expectations of 5.9%. Revenue for the quarter ended Dec. 29, 2013 rose 12% to $4.24 billion from $3.79 billion.

Same-store sales in the Americas region also rose 5%, while analysts had expected a 6.4% increase.

Seattle – Starbucks Corporation’s profit in the first quarter rose 25% to $540.7 million from $432 million in the year-ago period, better than analysts expected.

Revenue for the quarter ended Dec. 29, 2013 rose 12% to $4.24 billion from $3.79 billion. Same-store sales rose 5%, beneath Wall Street expectations of 5.9%.

Same-store sales in the Americas region also rose 5%, while analysts had expected a 6.4% increase.

Chattanooga, Tenn. -- To increase control of its digital activities, SmartFurniture.com chose to implement a stable of proprietary and third-party analytics, campaign management, and optimization tools. However, the solutions lacked the functionality and flexibility necessary to capture, analyze, and transform data into actionable insights, so SmartFurniture.com expanded adoption of Adobe Marketing Cloud.