Data & Analytics

Henderson, Nev. -- A Monday report by Reuters said that online shoe retailer Zappos was hacked over the weekend, affecting 24 million customers in its database.

The retailer, which is owned by Amazon.com, said that customers' names, email addresses, billing and shipping addresses, phone numbers and the last four digits of credit cards numbers and scrambled passwords were stolen. But it said the hackers had not been able to access servers that held customers critical credit card and other payment data.

PARSIPPANY, N.J. — Beauty brands rapidly are moving ahead with their social and mobile strategies to allow viral campaigns and create new consumer relations opportunities. But there’s no cookie-cutter approach, and brands are experimenting with what approaches work best for their business, according to a new report by consulting and research firm Kline.

NEW YORK — Retail industry sales are expected to rise, albeit not at the same pace as 2011, according to the National Retail Federation.

Retail industry sales will rise 3.4% to $2.53 trillion, NRF said, compared with a pace of 4.7% in the year-ago period. The expected slowdown in consumer spending, NRF said, will be influenced by a number of factors, including stalled unemployment rate and lack of newly-created jobs. But despite the lower projection, the industry is expected to garner stronger numbers than other industries, NRF said.

Parsippany, N.J. -- Cornell-Mayo Associates said Monday that Saks Fifth Avenue is piloting its Omniexpress mobile POS application for the iPod at two Saks Fifth Avenue OFF 5th stores.

The pilot is underway at stores in Woodbury Commons, N.Y. and Bergen, N.J., with four iPods in each store. Saks plans to pilot the Omniexpress mobile POS application for the iPod in its Saks Fifth Avenue stores later this month as well as begin the rollout to additional Off 5th and Saks Fifth Avenue stores in spring 2012.

By Jill Puleri, [email protected]

The recently concluded holiday season was a happy one for most retailers, thanks in part to a recovering economy, heightened consumer confidence and no debilitating weekend snowstorms.

Oh, and wide acceptance of technology gadgets and experiences may have helped a bit, too.

New York City -- ShopperTrak reported Monday that national retail sales, when compared with the same period last year, rose 3.5% during November and December, while foot traffic decreased 3.1%.

Smarter decision-making is a goal all retailers have, and now Target should be in an even better position to execute on that objective following a major agreement with industry leading data warehousing and analytics provider Teradata.

Riverside, Calif. -- A McDonald's restaurant in Riverside, Calif., has been LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold certification. It is the chain’s first location west of the Mississippi, and only the fourth in the United States, to receive the prestigious designation. Other LEED-certified McDonald's restaurants are located in Cary, N.C., Savannah, Ga. and Chicago.