News

O’Reilly Automotive plans to accelerate its expansion plans in 2016 following record revenue and profit in the third quarter.

The auto parts retailer now plans to open 210 new stores next year. The company is also on track to open 205 new stores by the end of 2015.

Home improvement retailer Ace Hardware Corp. is making its POS preferences known.

Ace is officially endorsing Epicor as the POS provider for its 4,800 locally owned cooperative stores around the globe. Today, more than 3,000 Ace Hardware store locations are leveraging the Epicor Eagle retail business management solution.

Lowe’s is giving customers a full 3-D view of their home projects, at home as well as in the store.

Lowe’s Innovation Labs, the retailer’s proprietary technology development center, is updating its Holoroom technology and expanding its availability. Partnering with virtual reality technology provider Oculus VR and Google, Lowe’s has upgraded its Holoroom feature, which lets customers visualize how they could use tools and materials sold at Lowe’s.

Mobile will drive more than half of Thanksgiving Day online shopping visits (51%) for the first time in 2015.

That is just one mobile-friendly statistic from the new Adobe 2015 Digital Index Online Shopping Predictions. The Index also forecasts mobile will account for close to a third (29%) of all holiday sales, a 12% increase from 2014. iOS will drive 22% of sales, Android just 7%.

Baseball’s great accidental philosopher Yogi Berra once said, “If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.” In the retail business, knowing where you’re going means understanding sales, inventory, promotions, pricing, and assortment.

Mobile will drive more than half of Thanksgiving Day online shopping visits (51%) for the first time in 2015.

That is just one mobile-friendly statistic from the new Adobe 2015 Digital Index Online Shopping Predictions. The Index also forecasts mobile will account for close to a third (29%) of all holiday sales, a 12% increase from 2014. iOS will drive 22% of sales, Android just 7%.

Looking at another emerging customer engagement channel, Adobe predicts social media will drive 2% of referred visits (flat growth), with revenue per visit highest on Facebook ($1.24).

Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube have some new competition as social commerce tools.

Visual commerce provider Curalate is releasing Curalate Reveal, a new solution enabling consumers to discover and shop products by clicking on images in blogs. Thus retailers can create shopping experiences on their own blogs or blogs of key influencers.

German discount grocery chain Lidl has broken ground for a new regional U.S. headquarters and distribution center in Spotsylvania County, Virginia.

Regional department store retailer Belk Inc. is using social media to make the holidays a little more fun and rewarding for its shoppers.

Build-A-Bear Workshop logged an increase in same store sales in the third quarter even as the company enters what is historically its most profitable season.

Same store sales at the specialty retailer increased 2.1% in the third quarter ended Oct. 3. This was the fifth consecutive quarter it grew same store sales.