News

For companies across all industries, 2013 brought a number of challenges that significantly impacted supply chains and presented even greater uncertainty around the state of the transportation industry. Shippers were forced to adapt to a slowly recovering economy and increased regulatory mandates, compounded by the continued pressure to cut costs and maintain — if not improve — service performance levels, all while effectively planning for the future.

Amazon announced a record-setting holiday season for its annual membership program Amazon Prime. More than 1 million customers around the world became new Prime members in the third week of December.

On Amazon’s peak shipping day, more Prime items were shipped worldwide than ever before. The entire 2013 holiday season was the best ever for Amazon, with more than 36.8 million items ordered worldwide on Cyber Monday, which is a record-breaking 426 items per second, and millions of customers unwrapped Kindle e-readers and Kindle Fire tablets this holiday season.

Consumer electronics retailer HH Gregg is looking for a new chief financial officer after Jeremy Aguilar resigned from the company to accept a similar role elsewhere.

Aguilar spent eight years with the Indianapolis-based operator of 228 stores. His resignation is effective as of January 31 at which time SVP of finance Andrew Giesler will assume CFO responsibilities on an interim basis.

Indianapolis – Jeremy J. Aguilar has resigned as CFO and secretary of Hhgregg, effective Jan. 31. Andrew S. Giesler, senior VP finance, has been appointed to serve as interim CFO and secretary from Jan. 31 until a full-time replacement is named.

Giesler, 36, has served the company in several roles since joining in May 2007, including senior VP finance; VP finance; VP controller and director of finance and investor relations. Aguilar is leaving to take a similar role at another company.

Bob Varakian and and Stephen Spitz were appointed to new roles at leading kitchenware and tabletop manufacturer Lifetime Brands.

The company said Bob Varakian will serve as group president over its cutlery/cutting boards and cookware/bakeware divisions effective January 6. He will report to Lifetime chairman and CEO Jeffrey Siegel. The company also named Stephen Spitz to the role of president for the cutlery/cutting boards division and he will report to Varakian.

Armonk, N.Y. -- Overall Christmas Day online sales were up 16.5% from the same period last year. IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark data for Dec. 25, 2013 shows mobile traffic was the highest IBM recorded this holiday season, accounting for 48% of all online traffic, up 28.3% compared to the same period last year.

Mobile sales also remained strong, approaching 29% of all online sales, up 40% from 2012.

Online holiday sales from desktop computers increased a less-than-expected 10% after a late season surge failed to materialize, according to comScore.

The digital measurement firm in late November predicted online sales from desktop computers would increase 14% during the November and December time frame and reach slightly more than $48.1 billion. However, as of December 26, data from the firm showed sales were up 10% to $42.8 billion for the comparable period.

Holiday sales are up 2.3% so far this season with the bulk of gift card redemptions yet to contribute to the results, according to new data from MasterCard SpendingPulse.