Data & Analytics

CHICAGO — In the wake of several surveys projecting how shoppers will spend this holiday season, the latest study from ShopperTrak expects national retail sales to increase 3% during November and December, while foot traffic will drop 2.2%.

ShopperTrak said its 3% holiday sales increase prediction follows 19 consecutive months of year-over-year U.S. retail sales growth, adding that the expected increase is moderate when compared with the 2010 holiday season's 4.1% sales increase over 2009.

The Network of Executive Women held its 10th annual leadership summit earlier this week in Orlando, and Walmart’s International CFO Cathy Smith was listed as a featured speaker. Nothing unusual about that, but what made Smith’s appearance unique is that rather than read a canned speech written by someone else, she engaged in a candid conversation with Jan Hill, founder of Hill Enterprises.

New York City -- Shopping-center sales in November and December are expected to increase 2.2% relative to the same period a year ago, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers. In 2010, the holiday season posted a 5% gain following two back-to-back declines during the 2007-09 recession.

The organization has forecast that U.S. holiday sales in 2011 will post a moderate 3% gain, down from 2.1% last year.
 

Sacramento, Calif. -- Walmart is taking its commitment to renewable energy to new levels in California. The chain announced plans to install solar panels on up to 60 additional stores in the Golden State. The initiative, done in partnership with SolarCity, expands the company’s solar portfolio to more than 75% of its locations in California.

Emeryville, Calif. -- Ikea officially plugged-in the solar energy system installed at its East Bay store in Emeryville, Calif. The 68,000-sq.-ft. photovoltaic array consists of a 538-kW system, built with approximately 2,394 panels.

The installation will produce approximately 760,300 kWh of clean electricity annually, the equivalent of reducing 578 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2), eliminating the emissions of 103 cars or powering 64 homes yearly.

Chicago -- SoCore Energy has been chosen as the solar developer to assist Walgreens in completing one of the nation’s largest solar energy rollouts. Construction of the first 20 solar installations at Ohio-area Walgreens began earlier this month, at stores in Cincinnati.

SoCore Energy is under contract to provide 90 Ohio solar installations for Walgreens. The first 53 will be completed by Nov. 11, pushing Walgreens’ total number of solar sites to 136.

Walgreens will lease the arrays from SoCore for 10 years.

San Diego -- At its first Smarter Commerce Global Summit, IBM announced a range of wins with clients across global industries. By deploying solutions for Smarter Commerce, these clients are capitalizing on rapid shifts in customer demand, improving their performance and appeal to new digital age consumers, IBM said.

New York City -- SAP announced it will acquire business-to-business (B2B) integration provider Crossgate, Munich. A leading provider of hosted B2B integration services, Crossgate enables companies to fully integrate and network with trading partners, clients and suppliers, allowing electronic data exchange with any business partner regardless of their technical capability.

Dallas -- Alliance Data Systems Corp., a provider of loyalty and marketing solutions derived from transaction-rich data, announced it has signed a new long-term agreement to provide private label and co-branded credit-card services for Marathon Petroleum Corp., Findlay, Ohio.

Dallas -- SRS Real Estate Partners said it has hired Andrew Cornwell as a research analyst in the Austin/San Antonio office.

Prior to this role, Cornwell was an intern for SRS where he focused on research while working closely with the investment sales team.