News

JGA has named Joanne Healy to the newly created position of executive VP, chief strategy officer.   Her responsibilities will span across strategy, creative and business development, bringing her unique perspective to the rapidly evolving world of retail, service and brand experience.    

Wayfair not only dominated during Cyber Week — it hit a company high.    The pure play home furnishings retailer reported a 52% increase year-over-year in direct retail gross sales (defined as dollars of order intake) for the five-day peak shopping period of Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday. The growth rate of total company gross sales was 46% YOY during the same period.   

Cart abandonment is a very real problem during the holiday season, but mobile users are giving up on orders most often.   These details were revealed in an infographic from Barilliance that detailed shopping behavior among 50 million consumers between Nov. 25 and Nov. 28.   

A new billion dollar merger is reported about to rock the supermarket industry.   Albertsons Companies Inc. is in advanced talks to acquire Price Chopper, a privately held, New York-based regional grocery store operator, for around $1 billion, Reuters reported. Price Chopper operates some 130 stores in the Northeast, including New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts.   

A new solar project will make Ikea the largest non-utility solar owner in the state of Ohio.   The home furnishings giant plans to install solar panels atop its future store in Columbus, Ohio, due to open in summer 2017.  It will be the second Ikea solar array in Ohio. The chain installed a 1.026-MW rooftop array at its Cincinnati-area store in 2012.   REC Solar will develop, design and install the solar power system at the Columbus store, which is being built by Pepper Construction. 

More than half (56%) of retailers plan to comply with the planned Fair Standards Labor Act (FLSA) overtime rule for exempt employees on Dec. 1, the date it was to go into effect, despite a Nov. 22 injunction that puts the plan on hold.   That is among the findings of a spot survey of U.S. retailers by the Hay Group division of Korn Ferry.    

Kimco Realty Corp. takes the top spot in Chain Store Age’s 12th annual Top Redevelopers survey, with 2,669,999 sq. ft. redeveloped. Kimco’s redevelopment reach in 2015-2016 spanned 19 states and Canada, as the company touched 39 projects in all. (The survey analyzed redevelopment work from mid-year to mid-year in the 12-month period from June 2015 to June 2016.)

Not many companies can follow up its own record-breaking Thanksgiving online sales -- but Kohl’s did.   The chain’s president and CEO Kevin Mansell said that the chain hit double-digit, record-breaking online sales and solid brick-and-mortar traffic to stores on Thursday, Nov. 24 and early Friday, Nov. 25, reported Milwaukee Business Journal.  

Move over Cyber Monday, Cyber Week is the new buzz term.    Cyber Week, comprised of Thanksgiving Eve, Nov. 23 through Cyber Monday, Nov. 28, is attracting more shoppers as they “grow more and more comfortable shopping on their phones and tablets, opening up the timetable for brands to reach them during the holiday shopping season," said Tony Zito, CEO, Rakuten Marketing.  

Wallets are definitely getting lighter this holiday season, especially as more shoppers use mobile wallets.   Nearly one quarter of consumers (24.2%) currently use mobile wallets, and 48.5% plan to make a gift purchase with their digital wallet this holiday season. Further, more than two thirds (69.6%) of wallet users indicated they would use their mobile wallets even more if more merchants allowed them to pay that way.