Is a merger between OfficeMax and Office Depot just a few days away? Although the office supply giants are keeping a tight lip, there have been several published reports within print and online media pointing all signs to yes.
Amazon Web Services Inc., announces its making available its data warehouse Amazon Redshift to customers. Redshift was first introduced in November of last year and could pose a possible threat to its competitors.
Following a slow fourth-quarter, Jerry Storch has decided to step down as CEO at Toys R Us. Meanwhile, Chris Vickers has been named president and CEO at Vermont Country Store, Victor Luis will eventually replace Lew Frankfort as Coach’s CEO, and Ulta Beauty president and CEO Chuck Rubin has been named CEO at Michaels Stores.
Amazon extends its domination of ecommerce into the mobile platform, according to the ForeSee Mobile Satisfaction Index: Holiday Retail Edition. In the survey, which was conducted of more than 6,200 consumers during the peak holiday shopping season between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the online marketplace scored highest among 25 of the top mobile commerce companies.
While most, if not all, holiday ecommerce reporting ends after Cyber Monday, EQ4 2012 examines trends through Christmas Eve, including an analysis of key performance indicators such as conversion rates and average order values by device and inbound referrer.
The U.S. Postal Service ended the first three months of its 2013 fiscal year (Oct. 1 – Dec. 31, 2012) with a net loss of $1.3 billion. Continued growth in Shipping and Package revenue (+4.7%) and increased efficiency helped mitigate but could not fully offset the financial effects of continued First-Class Mail volume declines and costs that are beyond Postal Service management control. As a result, the Postal Service recently announced it would move forward with accelerated cost-cutting actions necessary to help maintain liquidity because Congress has not passed comprehensive postal reform legislation.
ComScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, released its Full Year and Q4 2012 U.S. retail ecommerce sales estimates. For the full year, U.S. retail ecommerce sales reached $186.2 billion, an increase of 15%– the strongest annual growth rate since before the recession. Q4 2012 sales grew 14 percent year-over-year to $56.8 billion, marking the first ever $50 billion quarter.
Channel Intelligence, an ecommerce data service company, announced on its blog that they have been acquired by Google for $125 million. According to Mashable, the deal “is part of an ongoing effort to improve on the Google Shopping experience” and could “provide sellers with better tools to manage and market their products across the web.”
After teaming up with Kenshoo Social, a social marketing platform, to create an integrated Facebook marketing campaign, online retailer, Zappos, generated approximately 85,000 visits to its website in just two months.
U.S. retail and consumer merger & acquisition (M&A) activity in 2012 was primarily driven by corporations spinning off businesses, private equity (PE) investment in retail, increased cross border activity and expansion into e-commerce, according to PwC’s US retail and consumer M&A insights 2012 Year in Review and 2013 Outlook report released today.