News

Report: RadioShack cuts back Thanksgiving hours
Fort Worth, Texas –- RadioShack Corp. is reportedly placing a midday break into its previously planned all-day store hours for Thanksgiving. According to Bloomberg, an internal company memo shows that RadioShack, which had previously planned to keep stores open from 8 a.m. to midnight on Thanksgiving, will now close stores between noon and 5p.m. that day.
NRF: Almost half of holiday shoppers haven’t begun
Washington, D.C. –- A large number of holiday shoppers are taking their time when it comes to starting the task of making holiday purchases. According to NRF’s Holiday Consumer Spending Survey conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics, 45.6% of holiday shoppers say they haven’t started shopping yet.

Walmart stretching out Black Friday to five days

Bentonville, Ark. -- Following the lead of some other retailers, Walmart is spreading out Black Friday beyond the day after Thanksgiving.
Lowe’s provides omnichannel fulfillment with JDA-IBM solution

Mooresville, N.C. –- Lowe’s Companies Inc. is among the first users of an omnichannel fulfillment solution that is being jointly developed by JDA Software Group Inc. and IBM. The new initiative from the two technology providers will combine JDA intelligent fulfillment and labor productivity solutions with IBM Commerce and order management technology.
Santa sizzles in Belk’s digital effort

Department store retailer Belk has enlisted a hot male model to serve as a non-traditional Santa Claus at the center of a multifaceted digital initiative.
SAP and Samsung partner on mobile devices for business, including payments solution

New York -- Samsung Electronics and SAP SE are partnering to deliver enterprise mobility solutions for a number of industries, including an integrated payments solution.
Deeper Dive: Apple Pay vs. CurrentC

CurrentC, the mobile payment service under development from a retailer consortium known as Merchant Customer Exchange, or MCX, has been getting a lot of attention in the past week. First MCX members CVS and Rite Aid disabled their NFC payment systems to block the rival ApplePay mobile payment service, and then hackers stole the emails of CurrentC users. And despite all this publicity, CurrentC is still in pilot mode.
Alibaba reports $9.3 billion in sales on China’s “Singles Day” sales event

New York -- Alibaba Group Holding Limited announced that it hosted $9.3 billion in sales on China’s “Singles Day,” an annual sales event held on Nov. 11.

The E-commerce giant said that 43 of all Singles Day transactions came through mobile devices, up from 21% in 2013.
Retail circular advertising trends, September 2014

ECRM compared retail circular advertising in September 2013 versus September 2014 and noted trends occurring across top retail chains. In the aftermath of back-to-school season, Walmart and Staples appear to be trying to clear out all remaining school and office supplies. Staples accomplished this by improving its previous offer of $5 off with purchase of $30 to $10 off and also cut backpack prices by 50%. Walmart shifted the focus from school to office, with a “Run Your Business for Less” promotion.
More retailers offer Ultra’s prepaid service

Target, Dollar General and Barnes & Noble are helping customers make an international connection with a new offering from UltraMobile.