News

New York -- The cat is finally out of the bag. Former J.C. Penney CEO and Apple retail head Ron Johnson confirmed that he is launching a new company—but it’s not a tech-gadget delivery service as was widely rumored. Instead,  the new initiative, set to launch in 2015,  is designed to help online hoppers make the right product choices.  

Walmart SVP of creative Andy Murray unveiled a new shopper marketing framework in which the retailer envisions a 17 point “retail moment of truth” customer journey at the Path to Purchase Institute’s annual Shopper Marketing Conference & Expo in Minneapolis.

Sidney, Neb. –- Cabela’s Inc. missed Wall Street estimates for earnings and revenue in the third quarter of fiscal 2014. Net income rose 8% to $53.8 million from $49.9 million, dampened by provisions for income taxes.   The retailer said it plans to open 13-15 stores per year for the next several years.  

Berlin, Germany –- Five leading German retailers are partnering with U.S. shopping app Shopkick. At launch, Shopkick’s German network is comprised of more than 1,400 stores: all Douglas (largest beauty retailer in Germany), Media Markt and Saturn (together the largest consumer electronics retail chain in Germany), OBI (one of the largest do-it-yourself retailers in Germany) and Karstadt (one of the largest department stores in Germany) locations.

Retailers typically wait until after the holiday to close stores and announce layoffs, but widespread media reports indicated Sears Holding will be doing a little of both ahead of Christmas.  The company may close as many as 100 stores and layoff nearly 5,500 people before the year’s end, according to a report which first surfaced on the Web site Seeking Alpha.  Closures include over 100 Kmart, Sears and Sears Auto Center locations.  Sears revenue has been in decline for 30 straight quarters.

New York -- Retail e-commerce in the US grew 16.5% in 2013 to reach $264.3 billion, and will increase another 15.7% in 2014 to reach $305.7 billion, or 6.5% of all U.S. retail sales, according to Emarketer.      In other findings, mobile retail sales in the U.S. totaled $42.28 billion in 2013, 16% of all U.S. retail ecommerce sales, and will increase another 37.3% to reach $58.07 billion in 2014, accounting for 19% of the total US ecommerce market.   

Christmas procrastination knows no boundaries according to a recent survey which shows U.K. shoppers are as bad as Americans when it comes to waiting until the last minute.

For most shoppers Christmas won’t be coming early this this year.  Nearly half (47%) of consumers will order gifts online this this holiday season with less than a week until the big day itself, reveals the latest eCustomerServiceIndex results from eDigitalResearch, a UK-based experts on multi-channel customer experiences and IMRG, the UK's industry association for e-retail.  

Fort Worth, Texas -– Radio Shack is launching its new “R Promise” initiative to offer holiday shoppers services including price matching and new payment options. Radio Shack stores will match prices on identical products from local brick-and-mortar competitors, major online retailers (excluding wireless phones from online retailers) and RadioShack.com at the time of purchase or within 15 days of the purchase.