Data & Analytics

San Francisco -- More than half of Americans shop and spend money to improve their moods, according to a new survey.

The study, by Ebates.com, found that 63.9% of women engage in “retail therapy,” compared with 39.8% of men, and the belief that it improves moods was found among 39.2% of women, compared with 20.6% of men. The survey was conducted online by TNS Global and included 1,000 adults.

Boston -- Walmart Canada and Target Canada are very competitively positioned from a basket price perspective, according to a recent report by Kantar Retail.  

Based on the study’s results, Kantar Retail believes that Target’s “Pay Less” consumables prices will stack up well against its Canadian competition and that the retailer will prove to be a formidable challenge to Walmart Canada’s price position in the market.  

Deerfield, Ill. -- Walgreens reported Wednesday that sales for the month of March increased 2.3% to $6.2 billion.

Total front-end sales increased 5.4% compared with the same month in fiscal 2012, while same-store front-end sales increased 4.2%. Front-end sales will have benefited from a March 31 Easter — last year Easter sales fell in April. As a result Walgreens said it will report combined comps for March and April with its April sales results.
 

Oklahoma City -- CVS Caremark Corp. will pay $11 million to settle federal claims that the company’s pharmacies in the state violated record-keeping requirements of the Controlled Substances Act.

Federal prosecutor Sanford Coats said Wednesday that CVS has agreed to the settlement to resolve all allegations. However, while CVS said that its stores must comply with the record-keeping requirements, it does not admit liability.

By Greg Munves, [email protected]

If you’re like many mid-level or tier one retailers, online or brick-and-mortar, you’ve probably made a significant investment in Big Data, capturing and analyzing customer buying patterns across your business. You may not realize, however, that this huge IT investment can actually be a profit center, if you sell your data back upstream to your suppliers.
 

Boulder, Colo. -- In survey results released Wednesday by Market Force Information, DSW was named America’s No. 1 shoe retailer by more than 4,000 consumers polled.

Nordstrom, Nike, Shoe Carnival and Famous Footwear rounded out the top five.

Burlington, Mass. -- Demandware said Wednesday that Avenue Stores has selected the Demandware Commerce platform to support its omni-channel vision.  

Avenue Stores signed with Demandware in first quarter 2013.

Avenue needed a scalable and comprehensive digital commerce platform to realize its omni-channel vision, and will also utilize Demandware’s web design capabilities to optimize its sites for mobile and tablet commerce, as well as explore opportunities to integrate digital into its brick-and-mortar stores.  

New York -- Staples named former Walmart.com CEO Raul Vazquez to serve on its the board of directors.

Vazquez currently serves as CEO and a director of Progreso Financiero, financial services firm focused on serving the needs of "under-banked" Hispanic customers. The election of directors at Staples will take place at the company’s annual meeting on June 3.