News

Thorofare, N.J. -- Shrink, comprised of shoplifting, employee or supplier fraud, organized retail crime and administrative errors, cost the retail industry more than $112 billion globally last year, and represented 1.4% of retail sales, on average, according to the 2012-2013 Global Retail Theft Barometer. In the United States, shrink came in at 1.5% of retail sales.

Chicago -- ShopperTrak predicts that Wednesday, Dec. 4, will be the best day for consumers to shop this holiday season with the least amount of store shopper traffic.

Bentonville, Ark. -- Walmart will start unveiling its Black Friday deals on Thanksgiving at 6 p.m., which is two hours earlier than last year, and stagger them throughout the night and all Black Friday weekend. The retailer is also offering a special incentive to employees who work on Thanksgiving Day: a 25% discount on an entire purchase this holiday season."

New York -- Cache's loss in the third quarter widened amid increased expenses. Its results were also impacted by a large income tax benefit last year.

For the period ended Sept. 28, Cache Inc. lost $8 million, compared to a loss of $6.4 million a year ago.

Revenue increased 3% to $47.2 million, from $45.8 million. Same-store sales were down 2.9%.

Washington, D.C. -- Import volume at the nation’s major retail container ports grew 6.5% in October over the same month last year despite the government shutdown, and year-over-year increases are expected to continue for the remainder of the year, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.

Wayne, N.J. -- Toys “R” Us unveiled redesigned and updated e-commerce sites for Toysrus.com and Babiesrus.com, with a fresh design and layout, revamped navigation and other new features. In addition, the sites have introduced social shopping – allowing customers to organize their most-wanted items in shareable toy and baby boards, while also viewing the most popular and trending products on the sites.

Salisbury, N.C. -- Food Lion announced that it has made significant investments in 169 stores in North Carolina and South Carolina and created 500 new jobs. Key markets include Greenville, N.C., Wilmington, N.C., Columbia, S.C., Charleston, S.C., and Myrtle Beach, S.C.

To celebrate the launch, Food Lion is holding grand re-opening festivities at the 169 stores, including providing the first 50 customers at each location with a bag of free groceries Nov. 13 through Nov. 16.

Atlanta -- QuantiSense, a provider of retail exception management software, announced that Christopher & Banks Corporation has licensed both QuantiSense Playbooks and QuantiSense Retail Business Intelligence to help automate the management of retail exceptions across its 598 stores in 44 states, as well as to provide the business analytic platform for their enterprise.

Holiday shopping continues to encroach on Thanksgiving with Walmart the latest retailer to reveal plans that its promotional activity will begin at 6 p.m. with an expanded range of featured items, price guarantees, deeper inventory levels and detailed crowd control procedures.

If avoiding large crowds is your criteria for tackling the holiday shopping season, then ShopperTrak has some advice for you.

ShopperTrak, a leading provider of shopper analytics, has identified the 10 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas likely to have the least amount of in-store holiday shopper traffic, making them the best days to shop for consumers looking to do their shopping in a less frenzied environment.