News

Reston, Va. -- Following recent e-commerce trends released by comScore, online spending continues to grow at a consistent 15% rate. As reported earlier, holiday e-commerce spending rose 15% year-over-year to $26.8 billion for the first 42 days of the shopping season, through Dec. 12.

And on Sunday, comScore released its latest findings, that online sales surpassed $1 billion on four days during the work week of December 12-16, a 15% increase over the same period last year.

Springfield, Ill. -- Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn signed legislation Friday that grants hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks and incentives aimed at keeping Sears Holdings Corp., along with CME Group Inc., which operates the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, headquartered in Illinois.

Lawmakers approved the business tax breaks earlier this month, but Quinn had not yet signed the bill. Both companies had openly threatened to leave the state without some kind of significant aid package.

Walmart's social media shopping platform, Shopycat is using the services of ifeelgoods, a company that provides marketing and technology solutions for digital goods incentives, to provide Facebook credits as reward for key customer actions. 

Through its partnership with @WalmartLabs, Walmart's social media arm, ifeelgoods is providing technology to encourage customers to use Walmart's new ShopyCat social gift finder, ifeelgoods reported.

There’s nothing wrong with most of the consumer electronics items that get returned to stores, according to new research by Accenture. A study by the firm found that defects only account for about 5% of the returns and the rest of the time buyers’ remorse (27%) or a perceived flaw (68%) results in the item being returned.

The Network of Executive Woman, or NEW, is holding a new event in Dallas next year and has signed on Walmart’s top diversity executive as a featured speaker.

Yes, you read that correctly. Walmart will need to hire an estimated 4.3 million people over the course of the next five years to keep pace with anticipated growth and turnover. No wonder the company is such a big supporter of an organization known as Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE), which held its Global Partner Summit in Rogers, Ark. earlier this week.

SAN JOSE, Calif. — eBay announced that it has partnered with Toys“R”Us, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Aeropostale for a new incentive for you to spend money online and in stores.

According to the companies, when customers spend $100 online using PayPal at Toys“R”Us or Babies“R”Us on eBay, ToysRUs.com, BabiesRUs.com, Dicks Sporting Goods or Aeropostale.com, they will earn $10 to shop in-store.

ATLANTA — Coca-Cola on Thursday announced that Geoffrey Kelly will be retiring from his post as SVP and general counsel.

Kelly, who joined the company in 1970, will retire in February 2012. He has served in the role of SVP and general counsel since 2005.

Succeeding Kelly is Bernhard Goepelt, who will take on the role of SVP general counsel and chief legal counsel, effective immediately. Kelly will remain SVP during a transition period, Coca-Cola noted.

NEW YORK — Duane Reade is set to put its signature “New York Living Made Easy” vision on full display on Friday with the unveiling of its expanded store located at 1657 Broadway in New York.

The new 24-hour location, which opened Friday, will serve as an amplification of the retailer’s continued rebranding and aggressive transformation initiatives to date.

WASHINGTON — AAA forecasts 91.9 million Americans will travel 50 miles or more from home during the 2011-2012 year-end holiday travel season, a 1.4% increase over the 90.7 million people who traveled one year ago, the travel organization announced earlier this week. This year’s expected year-end holiday travel volume is the second-highest in the past decade and represents 30% of the total U.S. population.