Data & Analytics

East Cleveland, Ohio -- Walgreens received GE Lighting’s Retailer of the Year award in recognition of the drugstore chain’s transition from F28 to F25 linear fluorescent lamps, a strategic move that enabled the company to achieve a 9% energy savings while also extending its re-lamp cycle — how frequently it changes bulbs — by 10%. The award was presented at GE’s third annual LED & Energy Efficient Lighting Trends for Retail conference, held at the lighting unit’s headquarters in East Cleveland, Ohio.

North Plainfield, N.J. -- Shopping center owner and manager Levin Management Corp., in its annual pre-holiday survey, found that more than a third of its retail tenants predict 2011 sales will be higher than 2010’s, while just 18.9% project a drop in sales for the 2011 holiday season.

The remaining 44.2% expect this year’s holiday sales to mirror last year’s.

New York City -- A survey released Tuesday by Deloitte, which polled 1,000 consumers, found that the majority – 51% – will shop in stores or online over the Thanksgiving weekend. Among them, 66% plan to shop in stores on Black Friday and 17% plan to shop in stores on Thanksgiving Day.

The survey also found that shoppers expect to spend an average of $224 over the holiday weekend.

AMSTERDAM — Dutch supermarket operator Royal Ahold reported sales of $9.3 billion and profits of $347.8 million in third quarter 2011, the company said.

Those figures represented a 2.5% increase in sales and a 15.2% increase in profits over third quarter 2010.

NEW YORK — Most consumers have their wallets ready for Thanksgiving weekend and are armed with plans to spend an average of $224, according to Deloitte's pre-Thanksgiving shopping survey.

Savannah, Ga. -- Citi Trends reported Tuesday a loss of $6.8 million in the third quarter, compared with a loss of $0.4 million a year earlier.

Sales increased 2.2% to $143.1 million, from $140 million. Same-store sales decreased 9.3%.

The company opened 26 stores, relocated or expanded four others and closed one store in the third quarter.
 

By Alan Brill, Kroll

From headline-grabbing breach events to ongoing trends in information theft, the following industry events tell us a lot about the cyber security threats affecting the retail space this holiday season. Here is some light on how you can keep history from repeating itself.
 
Third-party breaches
Best practices in third party due diligence include:

Memphis, Tenn. -- Discounter Fred's Inc. reported Tuesday that profit for the third quarter rose 16% to $9 million, compared with $7.8 million a year earlier.

Revenue increased 2% to $444.4 million from $435 million last year, missing Wall Street’s expected $446.5 million in revenue.

Same-store sales rose 1.5%.