News

Starbucks offers ‘wonderful’ omnichannel promotion
Seattle – Starbucks wants customers to feel wonderful this holiday season. From now through Jan. 5, 2015, customers who pay using a Starbucks Card or Starbucks mobile app, can enter the Starbucks It’s a Wonderful Card Ultimate Giveaway.

The omnichannel promotion offers the chance to win one of 482,000 instant prizes, and 10 customers in the U.S. will win the prize of Starbucks for Life, which is one free food or beverage item from participating stores every day for the next 30 years.
APT Study – Early shopping hurts Thanksgiving weekend sales
Washington, D.C. – In-store sales were down from Thanksgiving Day through Black Friday, but the culprit may have been early holiday shopping more than lackluster consumer interest. According to the Applied Predictive Technologies (APT) Index of U.S. same-store sales, in-store sales dropped 5.8% during that two-day period compared to the previous year.

Kmart campaign makes a difference for kids

Shoppers at Kmart who are looking for that must-have toy this holiday season will be also able to help raise money to end childhood cancer and other diseases.

Kmart has announced that beginning this Sunday through Dec. 13, the retailer will donate $1 to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital for every purchase from its annual Fab 15 toy list, up to a maximum donation of $25,000.
Study: Twitter top social brand on Black Friday

New York – Black Friday was a more social event than Cyber Monday, with 3.5 million tweets and 838 million impressions compared to 839,000 tweets and 309 million impressions. According to a study from StatSocial, women were more likely than men to socially comment on both events, accounting for 59% of

Black Friday comments and 63% of Cyber Monday comments.
Walmart pledges $1.5M giveaway on Giving Tuesday

At a time when food pantries have a critical shortage of supplies and increased demand from those in need, Walmart is making a major pledge to help the hungry.
Study: ‘Cyber Five’ online sales up 21%

Morrisville. N.C. – Online sales for the total “Cyber Five” five-day period from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday rose 20.6% from the same period in 2013. According to analysis from ChannelAdvisor, the biggest increase occurred Cyber Saturday (27%) and smallest occurred on Cyber Monday (16.7%).
Analysis: Walmart had best return on Black Friday weekend ad spend
Record-setting Cyber Monday for Walmart—biggest day ever for online orders

SAN BRUNO, Calif.- It was a very busy Monday—Cyber Monday to be more specific— for Walmart. The discounter said that Cyber Monday 2014 (Dec. 1) was the biggest online day in its history for orders. Customers viewed more than 1.5 billion pages on Walmart.com between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday.
Amazon 8.0 now online

In a move to showcase its advanced shipping capabilities to holiday shoppers Amazon.com is touting the finer points of its eighth generation fulfillment centers.

The online giant said its eighth generation fulfillment centers embody two decades worth of software and mechanical innovations including extensive robotics technology from Kiva Systems, a company Amazon acquired several years ago.
Survey: Consumers trust online brands too much—to benefit of cybercriminals

Portland, Ore. – Consumers have trust in well-known brands online, possibly to the detriment of themselves and their employers and to and the benefit of cybercriminals. According to a new survey of 2,011 U.S. and U.K. consumers from security solutions provider Tripwire, more than 40% of consumers believe emails from “trusted brands” are safe to click, and nearly a quarter (24%) anticipate doing at least part of their holiday shopping while at work.

Survey findings include: