News

Los Altos, Calif. – Catalog Spree has launched a new beauty department in its mobile shopping app with lookbooks for retailers including Sephora, Beauty.com, Avon, Bliss, and The Body Shop. Catalog Spree's full-page lookbooks let consumers browse and shop by flipping through pages on an iPad or iPhone.

The app features more than 350 custom lookbooks, as well as traditional digital catalogs. Catalog Spree says the lookbooks have 50% more page clickthroughs than a traditional digital catalog.

Traditionally, retailers relied on advertising and direct response to succeed. To make more money, retailers simply let more people know about their stores and products.

Retailers often assume that meeting the needs of the Millennial generation through technology is a highly specialized endeavor due to the unique experience these “digital natives” have had growing up in an IT-centric world. But before making that assumption, retailers should consider these words author Joyce Maynard, then a Yale freshman, wrote in her 1972 New York Times essay “An 18-Year-Old Looks Back on Life:”

Catalog Spree, a digital mall that lets consumers browse, discover and shop their favorite brands, has launched a new beauty department in its mobile shopping app with lookbooks for Sephora, Beauty.com, Avon, Bliss and the Body Shop. 

The new department also features the Catalog Spree-branded Beauty Fall 2013 lookbook which includes brands such as Benefit, Bobbi Brown, Marc Jacobs, NARS and Yves Saint Laurent.

The pet category is experiencing growth, and True Value has taken notice. The retailer is paying special attention to statistics that show 72% of pet owners consider their pet a member of their family, and 70% of dog owners think their dog understands how they are feeling better than most people do.

It's no secret that home owners love their pets, but the category is attractive to independent hardware stores for more retail-centric reasons, according to panelists on a True Value seminar here at the co-op's 2013 Fall Reunion.

Deloitte’s holiday sales forecast points to further signs that the economy is recovering. Holiday sales are expected to climb to between $963 and $967 billion, representing a 4% to 4.5% increase in November through January holiday sales (excluding motor vehicles and gasoline) this year from last year’s season. 

Atlanta – Independent bookstores are reportedly growing sales at a healthy rate despite stiff competition from Amazon.com. According to an article in Fortune, American Booksellers Association figures show that independent bookstore sales in the U.S. grew 8% last year and are on track to grow at a similar pace this year.

Washington, D.C. -- Nearly 158 million consumers will participate in Halloween activities this year, slightly less than the historic high of 170 million people last year. New figures from the National Retail Federation (NRF) indicate the average consumer will spend $75.03 on Halloween this year, down 6% from $79.82 last year.

However, average overall spending on Halloween has increased 54.7% since 2005, with total spending estimated to reach $6.9 billion in 2013. Other NRF figures include: