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The National Retail Federation (NRF) predicts this year’s holiday retail sales to increase by 3-4% over last year, which saw sales reach $655.8 billion. The holiday season of Thanksgiving/Black Friday and Cyber Monday through Christmas accounts for 30-40% of total retail sales for the year. Retail expert Jan Kniffen told CNBC this weekend that online... Read more »

Walmart announced its third quarter results, which exceeded economic estimates. They reported online sales growth of 50%, and total revenue rising 4.2% to $123.2 billion, versus estimates of $121 billion. Walmart US rose to $77.7 billion, and same store growth over last year increased 2.7%, which was Walmart’s 13th consecutive quarterly increase. Based on Q3’s... Read more »

Four leaders in the beauty industry  – Clarins, Coty, Groupe Rocher, L’Oréal -, and EcoVadis, the leader in supply chain sustainability ratings, announced the launch of Responsible Beauty Initiative (RBI) earlier this week. The vision of Responsible Beauty Initiative is a global beauty industry where all suppliers have in place good ethical, social, environmental and... Read more »

Accelerated Analytics customers who sell their products at The Home Depot saw their third quarter comp sales increase 9.2% over last year! That surpasses the results reported by The Home Depot in their recently released third quarter results. In a blog post on November 15th, we shared The Home Depot’s Q3 results which included reported... Read more »

While it has been reported by numerous outlets that more people will shop on Cyber Monday versus Black Friday (51% compared to 38%), retailers are still quick to get their printed Black Friday circulars out. Lowe’s released their ad, announcing they will remain closed on Thanksgiving day, but will open at 6am on Black Friday.... Read more »

WalMart announced a series of holiday-time strategies on Wednesday, primarily focused on battling the threat of Amazon taking away from their sales. Their holiday strategy includes three themed parties between now and December 16, across 7,000 stores, for a total of 20,000 in-store parties. The parties will give shoppers the opportunity to play with toys,... Read more »

The National Retail Federation (NRF) annual holiday spending survey results were released, with a promising outlook for the holiday retail spending season. Consumers surveyed reported they expect to spend an average of $967.13 this year, up 3.4% from last year. Online shopping was listed by consumers as the #1 shopping destination for the first time... Read more »

eBay is offering a new service called eBay Authenticate, to protect shoppers from buying high-end luxury handbag brands that could turn out to be counterfeit. The service will verify the authenticity of luxury handbags and wallets across 12 brands, including Burberry, Chanel, Christian Dior, Louis Vuitton and Prada. For items valued at $500 or more,... Read more »

The National Retail Federation (NRF) released a report that retail sales increased 0.5% in September over August, with year-over-year sales growing 3.2%. The US Department of Commerce reported retail sales in September at $483.9 billion. Total sales for July through September rose 3.9% over 2016. These increases were attributed mainly to sales in building materials... Read more »