News

Leading beauty products manufacturer Elizabeth Arden is the latest company to cite an intensely promotional marketplace as the reason for worse-than-expected holiday season sales and profits.

The company said sales for its second quarter ended Dec. 31, would be in the range of $414 to $418 million and earnings per share would be between $1.13 and $1.16, substantially below sales of $468 million and earnings of $1.47 during the same period the prior year.

New York – Hair care brand Matrix, a subsidiary of L'Oreal USA, is launching Matrix Class for Glass, a new Google Glass app. Class for Glass features a three-phase rollout, including an exclusive blogger video series, the Matrix Eye for Style Google Glass Salon Chair and a salon professional education platform.

Armonk, N.Y. – IBM plans to commit more than $1.2 billion to significantly expand its global cloud footprint. This investment includes a network of data centers designed to bring clients greater flexibility, transparency and control of how they manage their data, run their businesses and deploy their IT operations in the cloud.

By Greg Arnette, CTO, Sonian

In the age of digital transactions, modern retailers have more data at their fingertips than ever before, right in their point-of-sale (POS) systems. In many cases, however, businesses are using POS data solely to process sales and update inventory levels. Instead, businesses could be leveraging the purchase data to learn much more about their customers and make actionable decisions that drive bottom-line results.

Listen Closely

Big data, the cloud and cognitive systems that learn are transforming the future of retail and IBM chairman, president and CEO Ginni Rometty explained during a stimulating and insightful presentation at the National Retail Federation’s annual convention.

“We’ve clearly entered a world that is mobile first,” Rometty said. “It is easy to say, but hard to do.”

San Bruno, Calif. -- Stella & Dot has selected GT Nexus to serve as the company’s end-to-end global supply chain visibility platform. The specialty jewelry retailer will leverage GT Nexus to help sustain its pace of business growth by standardizing processes and delivering visibility into the status of inventory from the moment goods are ordered through delivery to global distribution centers.

DALLAS — Incontinence can hamper the lives of even the most on-the-go, social consumers. Kimberly-Clark's Depend brand has a discreet solution that will help administer a fresh boost of confidence on a daily basis: the brand's new Fit-Flex protection will allow men and women to be as active as they want to be without fear of embarrassment. 

New York - The volume of emails sent by marketers increased nearly 13% during the 2013 holiday season compared with the 2012 holiday season, which also saw record highs in volume. Data from Experian Marketing Services shows that while email click-through rates and transaction metrics decreased year over year, the increase in email volume led to a 9% rise in the number of total transactions from email marketing campaigns and an 18.4% increase in overall revenue.