How RibbedTee Prepared its Customers for Holiday 2013 Delays

| Erin Lynch

If the 2013 holiday season will be remembered for anything in the ecommerce world, it very well could be how the lack of communication between merchants, carriers and shoppers created an unsatisfactory shopping experience, which is exactly why RibbedTee.com decided to be as upfront as possible regarding a lag in inventory.

Big Operational Changes Needed for Holiday 2014

| Kevin Sghia

If Holiday 2013 demonstrated anything to ecommerce merchants, it was that we need better ways to meet customer expectations and deliver products. So what did we as an industry learn during this challenging holiday season? Here are key observations by ecommerce and catalog operations experts.

Shipping Promotions Major 2013 Holiday Focus

| Erin Lynch

A new study by Innotrac has found that the most popular types of promotions offered by merchants over the 2013 holiday season were shipping offers. In fact, 34% of all promotions offered in holiday 2013 were shipping related and the single most offered promotion during the holidays was free shipping.

Best Buy Blames Price Competitiveness in Holiday Sales Decline

| Erin Lynch

The competition in price played a major role in the declining 2013 holiday sales results at Best Buy, according to a statement released by the electronics retailer. In the nine week holiday period that ended on Jan. 4, Best Buy reported $11.45 million in revenue, down slightly from the 2012 holiday season of $11.75 million.

Holiday Ecommerce Sales Rose 9.3%

| MCM Staff

Total holiday retail sales, which includes November and December sales, increased 3.8% to $601.8 billion, which was in line with NRF’s projected forecast of 3.9% and $602.1 billion.

Target, Target Canada, ecommerce, store closings, Canadian retail market, Zellers

Target: Security Breach Affected 70 Million Customers

| Tim Parry

As part of its ongoing investigation into a security breach discovered last month, Target has determined that the stolen information includes names, mailing addresses, phone numbers or email addresses for up to 70 million individuals.