News

Despite severe winter weather travails during the holiday shopping season, the National Retail Federation reported that December retail sales didn’t take the hit that many feared.

In fact, taking advantage of heavy promotions and last-minute deals, shoppers were able to move the December retail sales needle up 0.4% month-to-month, excluding automobiles, gas stations and restaurants, and up 4.6% year-over-year.



Best Buy has elected Cabela's president and CEO Thomas L. Millner to its board of directors.

“Tommy is a well-regarded CEO who has successfully transitioned his organization from a traditional retailer to one that is highly respected as an effective omnichannel player,” said Hatim Tyabji, chairman of the Best Buy board of directors. “Best Buy is on the same journey and Tommy’s insights will, no doubt, be valuable as the Company looks to even better serve its customers wherever and however they want.”

New York -- Eminence Capital, a 4.9% stakeholder in Jos. A. Bank and a 10% shareholder in Men’s Wearhouse, said it supports Men's Wearhouse's proposed acquisition of the company and demanded that Jos. A. Bank's board sit down and engage in "meaningful, good faith negotiations."

Efforts to merge the two retailers have dragged on for months, with each chain having their offers to acquire the other rejected.

New York -- A new IBM study of more than 30,000 global consumers found that consumers are willing to share their personal information with retailers, particularly if they get good value in exchange.

According to the findings, the percentage of consumers willing to share their current location via GPS with retailers nearly doubled year-over-year to 36%. Thirty-eight percent of consumers would provide their mobile number for the purpose of receiving text messages and 32% would share their social handles with retailers.

Atlanta -- First Data Corp., in its SpendTrend analysis for December, reported that dollar volume grew 6.1%, which marked a significant spike compared to November’s growth of 4.4% as holiday shoppers were out in full force with no time to procrastinate due to the shortened holiday shopping season.

SpendTrend tracks same-store point-of-sale data by credit, signature debit, PIN debit, EBT, closed-loop prepaid cards and checks from nearly four million U.S. merchant locations serviced by First Data.

New York -- Big data discovery and data-sharing solution-provider 1010data said that Claire’s has chosen its cloud-based platform for big data discovery across its global businesses. 1010data allows Claire’s to integrate data from throughout its enterprise and provide a self-service analytical platform for users to derive data-driven insights and receive fast access to business results.

Austin, Texas -- End-to-end merchandise optimization solution-provider Revionics announced a multi-year agreement with Victoria Supermarkets for its Price Optimization solution rollout.

Victoria Supermarkets operates 83 markets in Russia and is owned by the DIXY Group, one of Russia’s largest national retail operators in the food retail market.   

New York -- Regional discount retailer Fred’s is making some big changes to its merchandising and operations groups to begin 2014 and has retained several firms to review strategic opportunities.

New York -- RadioShack is enlisting specialty retail industry veteran John W. Feray to help the company execute its turnaround strategy and has appointed him executive VP and CFO, effective Feb. 6.

Redwood Shores, Calif. -- To extend its “commerce anywhere” strategy, Stage Stores has implemented Oracle Commerce. The initiative, completed in less than six months, provided the retailer with a new e-commerce engine, along with guided search and recommendation solutions, all before the 2012 holiday shopping season kicked off.