Data & Analytics

Hoffman Estates, Ill. – Sears Holding Corporation is launching a number of enhancements to the in-store, online and mobile customer experience offered at its Sears and Kmart banners for the holidays.

Employees and Shop Your Way loyalty members are loading photos, announcing secret sales and sharing their favorite products from local Kmart and Sears stores on the local store pages of ShopYourWay.com. Store pages also allow customers to download e-coupons and obtain local deals.

Shopper activity increased this October, in line with ShopperTrak expectations. Total retail store shopper traffic increased 2.4% compared to September 2013. Consumers who were off work for the Columbus Day holiday (Monday, Oct. 14) took advantage of store promotions to update their cold-weather wardrobes. Many others hit the stores to gather costumes, candies and other necessities for Halloween (Thursday, Oct. 31).

Reston, Va. – U.S. desktop-based e-commerce sales grew year-over-year to $47.5 billion during the third quarter of 2013, marking the 16th consecutive quarter of positive year-over-year growth and 12th consecutive quarter of double-digit growth. In addition, newly released comScore data shows that e-commerce spending on smartphones and tablets added $5.8 billion for the quarter, up 26% from year ago, for a total digital commerce spending total of $53.2 billion in the third quarter.

The Shop Your Way loyalty program Sears Holdings introduced in 2009 has been given interesting new social functionality with the introduction of Store Pages.

Chicago — Employment growth in science, technology, engineering and mathematics and the continuing recovery in the U.S. housing market have begun to affect all sectors of commercial real estate, according to Jones Lang LaSalle’s “Cross Sector Outlook.”

Total sector commercial real estate volumes in the first three quarters of 2013 have reached $208.82 billion, an increase of 30% over the same period in 2012, said the report.

Acton, Mass. – Regional specialty gift retailer The Paper Store is leveraging the Epicor Retail SaaS solution, a hosted enterprise software suite that includes Epicor Retail Store, CRM, Merchandising, Sales Audit, and Loss Prevention applications.

San Francisco – Gap Inc. reported increased net and same-store sales during the third quarter of fiscal 2013 in a partial financial release. Gap’s third quarter net sales grew 3% and same-store sales grew 1% compared to the prior year.

In addition, Gap’s same-store sales grew 4% in October 2013. The retailer will release full third quarter earnings results on Nov. 21, 2013.

Greg Saputo has spent a career in retail loss prevention and in the latest installment of the National Retail Federation’s video series, “This Is Retail,” he reflects on the first time he caught a shoplifter.