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New York - Retail sales in the United States increased 5.5% from the day after Thanksgiving through Christmas Eve, fueled by demand for women's apparel, jewelry and dining out, according to MastyerCard Advisors. Spending Pulse holiday report. Consumer electronics, which many industry analysts had predicted would be among the strongest categories this holiday season, was actually among the weakest, according to the report, with sales "basically flat" from Black Friday to Dec. 24 and in negative territory starting on Nov. 1. 

Retailers’ with robust mobile e-commerce capabilities were able to cash in on Christmas Day as sales increased 8.3% compared to the prior year, according to the latest update from IBM’s Digital Analytics Benchmark report.

In addition to the 8.3 percent in online Christmas Day sales, IBM said mobile device traffic increased 18.6 percent to account for 57.1 percent of all Christmas day e-commerce traffic. Mobile sales increased 20.4 percent and accounted for 34.8 percent of all online sales, according to IBM.

Seattle – It was a very mobile holiday season for Amazon.com. Nearly 60% of Amazon.com customers shopped using a mobile device this holiday.     Mobile shopping accelerated as customers got later into the shopping season. Cyber Monday continues to be Amazon.com’s peak mobile shopping day. On Cyber Monday, Amazon customers worldwide ordered more than 18 toys per second from a mobile device.  

New York - The day after Christmas (Dec. 26) posted the highest traffic for online shopping, with 125 points, since the 2014 holiday shopping season began. According to Verizon Retail Index data, year-over-year, traffic attributed to online shopping was on par (125) with the same day in 2013.  

New York – When it came to fulfilling holiday deliveries, Apple, Dell, Nordstrom and Zappos stood out among other major competitors. According to research from StellaService, all four provided an aggressive guarantee that orders placed by Dec. 23 would be delivered by Christmas and managed to meet that promise in all regions of the U.S.  

Ezra Dabah is no stranger to children’s wear. As the former chairman and CEO of The Children’s Place, he helped create a billion-dollar retail powerhouse. Dabah left the company in 2007, but he returned to the kids fashion business with Ruum American Kid’s Wear, a fashion-forward upmarket concept that bowed in 2012 and operates 24 stores, primarily in malls.

Retailers expected online sales to hit record levels in 2014 and did they ever.

New all-time highs for e-commerce sales are now expected for the November through December time frame following a strong surge in sales during the final week before Christmas, according to the digital measurement firm comScore.

Female executives make their mark on the world of retail IT

It’s no secret that neither the retail industry nor the technology industry has exactly achieved parity when it comes to granting women access to top-level decision-making positions. According to a report from IIC Partners, 64% of retailers said their senior executive team was less than 25% female — despite the fact that women drive a whopping 85% of all consumer purchases.

Women are famously underrepresented in technology.