Data & Analytics

Aston, Penn. -- Action Services Group  has completed LED retrofits in five Music & Arts stores, with more to come (Music & Arts specializes in the rental and sale of band and orchestra instruments). The LED lighting retrofits, projected to reduce each store’s energy usage by 78% per year, included replacing the existing halogen 75-watt and 90-watt spot lamps covering the sales floor as well as the hanging-instrument walls with 16-watt LED spot lamps.

Draper, Utah -- Online eyewear retailer glasses.com is launching its virtual try-on app for iPhone and iPod touch devices. The glasses.com virtual try-on app launched this past July for iPad.

North Plainfield, N.J. — Levin Management’s annual pre-holiday retail sentiment survey has found that retailers expect consumers to begin their holiday shopping sooner this year. Specifically, Levin said that 43.3% of responding retailers believe that holiday sales will peak prior to and during the Thanksgiving/Black Friday weekend sales period.

Only 13.5% believe that sales will peak later — during the weekend before Christmas, a significant drop from last year’s 29.2%.

Atlanta -- Dollar volume growth in credit, signature debit, PIN debit, EBT, closed-loop prepaid cards and checks at U.S. merchant locations in October 2013 was 6.8%, an uptick from the prior month’s growth of 5.3%. First Data Corporation’s First Data SpendTrend analysis shows the growth was supported by the onset of cooler temperatures, which drove sales of seasonal merchandise and early holiday advertising attracting shopper foot-traffic.

HARRISBURG, Pa. — The Environmental Protection Agency has recognized Ahold USA for its efforts to reduce food waste, the agency said.

The EPA said it recognized Ahold for its contributions to the Food Recovery Challenge, which encourages organizations to donate and divert as much of their excess food as possible, which the agency said helps protect the environment and feed needy people. Ahold USA owns the Giant Food Stores of Carlisle, Pa., Giant Food of Landover, Md., and Stop & Shop supermarket banners, as well as the online grocer Peapod.

Retailers anticipate a 3.1% increase in sales on Black Friday this year, mirroring their projections from last year. However, a new a survey of top retail chief marketing officers by BDO USA shows that retailers have moderated their expectations for growth in Cyber Monday sales, predicting that sales will grow by 3.7% this year, down slightly from last year’s sunnier 4.3% growth projection.

Bon-Ton is looking to upgrade its supply chain solution and is turning to technology provider ecVision to help the company improve the existing platform it uses.

Seven years ago, Bon-Ton implemented ecVision's solutions for vendor management, PO integration and production and shipment tracking for its international orders. The company is ready for an upgrade, however, so it can efficiently deal with the more than 100,000 SKUs which are sourced and delivered to stores around the country.

Workforce management data, such as time and attendance and payroll, is generally seen as information pertaining to the back end of retail operations. Managing employees is an activity that generally does not involve front-end customer interaction and data generated from this activity is usually siloed from the data retailers use to help guide their customer-facing activities.