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The bipartisan White House-backed Innovation Act (H.R. 3309) passed the House 325 to 91. The bill seeks to cull the numerous patent cases, commonly referred to as troll cases, that have little to no evidence and rely solely on litigation prowess over small companies.
Thanksgiving online sales totaled $1.06 billion in the U.S., according to Adobe Systems, which analyzed 180 million visits to more than 1,000 U.S. retail websites. Revenue for leading online retailers rose nearly 40 percent from last year, ecommerce firm Monetate reports. The increases included a 73.6 percent rise in revenue from shoppers using tablets, a 50.7 percent rise in sales to smartphone users, and a 39.8 percent increase in revenues via laptop and desktop computers.
Walgreens has long been at the forefront of retail revolutions. Before the days of the Internet, the company would deliver prescriptions to their customers by the time they got off the phone. Today, the drugstore is changing the face of retail again with its scan-to-refill prescriptions. Customers simply scan their empty pill bottles to order new prescriptions instantly. They can then be picked up in a local store or delivered to their door, whatever is most convenient for the customer. It is this notion of bricks-and-clicks that is taking the retail world by storm.
Free shipping is an enticing promotion that more and more retailers are offering year round, according to a new survey from Shop.org, the online retail arm of the National Retail Federation. Nearly 35 percent of respondents say they already offer free shipping all year long, compared with 23.1 percent who did so a year earlier. In the survey involving 91 retailers, 16.3 percent had planned to begin offering free shipping as a holiday promotion the last week in October.
Under a proposal by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), first-class postage stamps could rise to 49 cents, or by 6.5 percent, and pricing for other mail, including postcards and packages, would also rise on Jan. 26, 2014. The increase would raise about $2 billion in additional revenue a year, and will require approval from the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC).
The coolest product introductions, as indicated by the recent 2013 Fast Company Innovation by Design Awards, close the gap between man and machine in ways that make consumers’ daily tasks easier than ever. Smartphone-compatible toys and tablet-operated gadgets continue to gain momentum as designers push the limits of innovation.
Shop.org expects online holiday sales in November and December to grow from 13 to 15 percent over the 2012 holiday season to as much as $82 billion. “Online and mobile continue to be a leading area of growth for retailers. In this economy, savvy, cost-conscious consumers go to the web to do their research and get the best bang for their buck,” said NRF president and CEO Matthew Shay.
As retailers plan for the all-important holiday shopping season, they must take note of a phenomenon known as “Thanksgivukkah,” the rare occurrence of the first day…