News

U.S. Internet Q1 ad revenue hits $13.3 billion
New York — Internet ad revenues hit a record-breaking $13.3 billion in the United States in the first quarter of 2015, up 16% over the year-ago period, according to the latest IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report figures released today by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PwC US.
Aldi opening 45 California stores by 2016
Low-price grocery chain Aldi is coming to Southern California, as the retailer hastens plans to open at least 45 stores in that state by the end of 2016.

The retailer says it plans to hire more than 1,100 people to work in its Southern California stores, as well as at the company's regional headquarters and warehouse in Moreno Valley, Calif.

Men’s Wearhouse to open 300 tuxedo shops in Macy’s

Fremont, Calif. — Men's Wearhouse on Thursday announced it had signed a 10-year agreement with Macy's to operate men's tuxedo rental shops inside 300 Macy’s locations. The shops are expected to be located in or near the men’s department.

Men's Wearhouse will begin operating 17 pilot tuxedo shops in fall 2015, and expects the remaining shops to be open by fall 2016. Macy's and Men's Wearhouse will also collaborate to develop a digital tuxedo rental shop on macys.com.
JDA to launch cloud-based solutions on Google Cloud Platform

Scottsdale, Ariz. – JDA Software Group will release its next generation of cloud-based omnichannel and supply chain solutions on the public Google Cloud Platform. Through this collaboration, Google will provide a scalable and flexible technology platform via the cloud to support JDA’s future application development and delivery.
Survey: E-commerce growth is accelerating

E-commerce traffic increased 18% in the first quarter, according to the latest Shopping Index from Demandware.

The report measures digital commerce growth and identifies the trends driving that growth based on analysis of same site activity over time. The latest Demandware Shopping Index reveals that shopper attraction, which measures the number of shoppers, was up 18% in the first quarter of 2015 over the first quarter last year and drove 83% of the digital commerce growth.
U.K. self-serve coffee retailer leverages Watson Analytics

London, U.K. — Honest Cafe, an automated coffee house chain in London, is using IBM Watson Analytics to unearth client insights to help determine everything from coffee products and pricing, to marketing and promotions. Honest Cafe is a new venture from Revive Vending where three cafes currently in operation, and four more planned, are all unmanned.
J.Crew fires head designer, trims staff

Troubled specialty retailer J.Crew Group Inc. says it has laid off 175 staff members and fired its chief women’s designer.

The company says the changes and business improvement initiatives will "better align with the current and future retail environment."
Five tips for retailers to personalize interaction with customers

By Joe Dalton As technologies advance, social channels proliferate, and consumers become more plugged into digital marketing, personalization and contextualization is becoming the key to connecting with customers. While consumers build their online identities simply by using their devices for everything from browsing to averting traffic, they leave trails of their preferences, behavior, and values that retailers can draw upon to appeal to the interests of each individual customer.
American Apparel has a new CIO

American Apparel announced it has appointed Brian McHale as senior VP and CIO, with responsibility for overseeing information technology and computer systems.
Survey: e-commerce growth up 18% in first quarter

New York — Online traffic rose 18% in the first quarter, according to Demandware's latest Shopping Index. The study also reveals that the duration of mobile shopping visits decreased 43% in the first quarter, down to 8.4 minutes. Overall shopping episodes were also down 31% to 8.9 minutes.