Data & Analytics

ATLANTA — An organized retail theft ring that targeted 70 Home Depot stores in six states has been taken down by multi-agency task force after the arrest of three men in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. Two other suspects are still be sought. 

WOONSOCKET, R.I. — CVS Caremark has confirmed that Stuart McGuigan, SVP and CIO, will be leaving the company April 13.

CVS Caremark has initiated a search for his replacement, according to a company spokesperson.

McGuigan has served as SVP and CIO since December 2008. Before that, McGuigan was SVP and CIO of Liberty Mutual Group from September 2004 to December 2008, and was deputy CIO and SVP of Liberty Mutual from February 2004 to September 2004. From 2000 to February 2004, he was SVP information technology at Medco Health Solutions.

San Francisco -- Sephora on Monday unveiled its social and mobile makeover, which includes a new personalized web experience, new mobile website, iPhone app and iOS devices in over 100 stores.

New York -- Facebook will purchase the photo-sharing application Instagram for about $1 billion in cash and stock, company CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Monday. The deal, which is the social-networking company’s largest acquisition to date, is expected to close later this quarter.

Instagram was named iPhone app of the year in 2011.

Facebook will acquire Instagram's entire team as part of the deal.

New York -- The average vacancy rate at strip malls across the United States edged down for the first time in nearly seven years in the first quarter, falling to 10.9% from 11% in the prior quarter, according to preliminary data by real-estate research company Reis Inc., Reuters reported. It was the first decline in nearly seven years.

But the firm warned consumer spending is still not strong enough to lift retail real estate out of its slump.

By Elizabeth Cogswell Baskin, [email protected]

Retailers are flocking to the visually enticing Pinterest site to engage with consumers. But the site can also be a powerful driver to engage employees.

Why is Pinterest suddenly such a big deal? For one thing, it’s exploding with growth. In September of last year, they had less than 2 million users. Now, it has 20 million users or more.

BOSTON — A study conducted by Brodeur Partners has unveiled the most relevant retailers in the United States.

Is Walmart’s private brand White Cloud toilet tissue too good? That’s the question the company has to be asking itself about the product’s specifications after seeing recent test results from Consumer Reports.

Walmart is the nation’s largest food retailer, and 140 million people shop its stores each week, yet somehow the company ranked second to last on a ranking of the best and worst supermarkets in America.

In the 1950s, when science fiction writers dreamed about the coming age of computers, they assumed that like everything else in their experience, computers would get ever larger as they got more powerful. Some predicted computers would be as big as small towns, maintained by thousands of workers.

Obviously, extrapolating from what you know isn’t always the best way to predict the future. It fails to account for the unexpected invention or idea that turns everything on its head.