News

Did a last-minute rush make for stronger holiday sales than many — including the National Retail Federation — had expected?

That’s the way it looks based on the MasterCard Spending Pulse report, which found that sales (excluding auto and gas) increased 7.9% during the holiday season, led by double-digit gains in e-commerce, women’s apparel and furniture.

The SpendingPulse report, released on Monday, December 28, looked at U.S. sales trends across cards, cash and checks from Black Friday to Christmas Eve.

Staples Inc. is turning to Twitter to provide extra assistance for its small business customers.

Staples is preparing the launch of the #MoreSmallBiz Squad, a group of experts who will directly interact with small business customers through use of the #MoreSmallBiz hashtag. The experts will offer blog posts and other content, and also directly interact with small businesses who post questions on Twitter using the hashtag.

On-demand alcohol delivery app Drizly is in a growth mode. The start-up has an average transaction of around $70, about three times higher than a normal, average in-store transaction, the founders told Boston.com. [Boston.com]

Ordering groceries online and digitizing the store rank among the top trends in grocery shopping for 2016, according to GroceryStories.com.

GroceryStories identified the following full list of top grocery trends for 2016:

Amazon.com had a merry (and prosperous) holiday season, at least according to a limited set of statistics released by the e-tail giant.

Amazon touted the impact of mobile commerce on its 21st holiday season, reporting that nearly 70% of its customers shopped using a mobile device. However, Amazon did not break that figure down into how many shoppers actually made mobile purchases compared to those who browsed on a mobile device and bought through another channel.

More than a fifth of the world’s retail sales occurred in the United States this year.

That’s according to the latest forecast of retail and e-commerce sales from eMarketer, which estimates that total U.S. retail sales hit $4.8 trillion in 2015 and will approach $5 trillion in value in 2016.

When it came to clicking online coupons in 2015, consumers had clear preferences about what they wanted discounts for.

Online deal and discount platform RetailMeNot.com released a list of the 10 most popular coupons among its users in 2015. Some offers received close to 1.5 million clicks. In order, consumers clicked:

• 20% off one item at Tillys
• $5 off an online order of $15 or more at Ulta
• Up to 35% off a car rental at Budget

Born the six of seven kids to parents of modest means, Conn’s CEO Norm Miller knows firsthand the challenges facing working families. That’s why he’s proud of Conn’s approach to serving customers and believes the retailer’s unique business model offers staggering growth potential.