News

Apple sold nearly seven million more iPhones during its fourth quarter, but total revenue growth was up only 4.2% and profits were below prior year levels.

Total revenue for the fourth quarter ended September 28, increased to $37.5 billion from $36 billion while net income declined to $7.5 billion, or $8.26 a share, from net income of $8.2 billion, or $8.67 a share. The company’s gross margins also took a hit, declining to 37% of sales from 40% in the year ago period.

Bedford, Mass. – Daily mobile/online retail revenues surge an average of 55% on Cyber Monday (the Monday after Thanksgiving), but a corresponding surge in attacks drives hard losses, on average, as much as $500,000 per hour or $8,000 per minute. In addition, a new study of 1,100 U.S., and U.K., retail IT staffers from RSA and the Ponemon Institute shows that 66% of respondents expect that disruption would result in customer churn that would damage reputation and brand and could push losses as high as $3.4 million from a single hour of disruption.

Shoppers at J.C. Penney stores this holiday season will discover a more rewarding experience following the retailer’s decision to team up with leading retail app Shopkick.

J.C. Penney shoppers will be able to Shopkick’s currency known as "kicks” along with special offers from the retailer when visiting any of its nearly 1,100 stores

By Carl Meadows, [email protected]

Retailers always prefer clear skies. But from an operational standpoint, more and more are preparing for cloudy days ahead – via cloud computing.

If a retailer is considering the use of a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet for its data rather than using its own physical servers, just how cloud-ready is it? 

Competition from digital entertainment providers may be on the rise, but with an installed base of 43,600 locations, rental activity at Redbox hit a new high in the third quarter and generated traffic for retail partners in the process.

New York -- Amazon.com narrowed its loss in the third quarter and posted a better-than-expected 25% increase in sales. The online giant reported a net loss of $41 million, down from $274 million in the year-ago period, in line with expectations.

Amazon reported revenue of $17.1 billion, beating expectations by about 2% on strong sales growth, particularly in the U.S. market.

Caty, N.C. – Consumers have somewhat contradictory desires for greater data privacy and for businesses to have detailed insight into their personal needs, and also have seen improvement in how businesses use personal data. According to a new study from analytics technology provider SAS, 71% of 1,260 respondents surveyed said that recent news about government access to personal data increased their privacy concerns.

The retail industry couldn’t function if it weren’t for the efforts of store managers at the front lines of running the day-to-day business, executing corporate strategies, managing people and serving customers.