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"On Smartphone-Optimized Sites, Black Friday Sales Up 187%, Thanksgiving Sales Up 258% Over Last Year"

"In terms of m-commerce, the proportion of sales through mobile devices (including tablets) reached 10.7% -- exceeding 10% for the first time in 2012 -- up from 9.9% in September. That figure is also more than double the share of sales from mobile in the year-earlier period. Excluding tablets, about 4% of sales in October came through handsets."

"Google's "Smartphone Launch Predictor" study found that 52 percent of purchase-related searches occur before a smartphone is launched. According to Google, the key to a successful smartphone launch is getting ahead of the release and marketing early. "One of the biggest factors is getting early buzz. Getting early buzz is key [for a successful smartphone launch]," Google Industry Director for Tech Kyle Keogh told ClickZ. The study found that the earlier a firm markets a smartphone the more likely they are to succeed in sales. According to Google, an extra 1,000 news stories put in place weeks before a launch can lead to a 9 percent spike in smartphone sales. Google's research discovered that users tend to do general product searches in the week during launch. After launch, it was discovered that consumers dig deep and search for key specifications on a device. Video is also becoming a key research tool for consumers shopping for a smartphone. According to the study, video views for smartphones increased 60 percent this year. Google says that if a smartphone gets over 1 million video views during launch week it will likely sell over 1.3 million units."

"To get a feel for the tablet vs PC market, I again looked to IDC for data on computer sales. Last month, it reported a total of 87.7 million personal computers were sold in the third quarter of this year; down 8.6 percent from the year ago quarter. That's not a favorable trend, considering tablet sales grew nearly 50 percent in the past year. If you were to ignore the smartphone for this exercise - which has surpasses sales of the PC early this year - and do a quick calculation of the total tablets and PCs sold, 24 percent of the 115.5 "computers" were tablets in the last quarter."

"The deal, which the airline announced on its website Wednesday, is a reference to Mitt Romney's much-lampooned "Binders full of women" remark during Tuesday night's debate. It hasn't even been 24 hours since the remark was made in the debate and already a "Binders Full of Women" Facebook Page has more than 300,000 fans, which is more than IBM has. Spirit has eagerly jumped on hot media stories in the past for quick punchlines. In 2011, the brand made light of Rep. Anthony Weiner's Twitter scandal with a "Wiener sale" and mocked Tiger Woods' domestic troubles before that with an "Eye of the Tiger" sale."

"Unsurprisingly, Google is still at the top of the pile: it will account for 56% of all mobile ad sales. Perhaps more surprisingly, Twitter is doing better than Facebook in driving revenues where mobile ads are concerned: the world's biggest social network will make half as much as Twitter in mobile ads this year: $72.7 million versus $129.7 million, the analysts say. However that is bound to be reversed over time: eMarketer predicts that by 2014, Facebook will be making $629.4 million in mobile ads, compared to $444 million for Twitter, putting Facebook at a distant second to Google. Longer term, eMarketer predicts that U.S. mobile advertising will generate sales of $12 billion by 2016."

Deep dive into app sales and in-app sales from the Camera+ app.

"Several companies have successfully built cooperative marketing structures online. Companies such as OwnerIQ, for example, enable online retailers like Crutchfield to retarget people who visit the web sites of electronics manufacturers, offering the flatscreen TVs they were just studying - at a discount. When it comes to driving brick-and-mortar sales from online, though, Facebook appears to offer the best solution yet. CPG brands gladly pay for retail circulars to help sell their products, and there's reason to believe they could buy Facebook advertising to drive consumers into retail locations. One company with which we work, ShopLocal, puts a retailer's circular content into a database, including images and all the sale prices and details. In so doing it makes local data portable and extendable, so retailers can build online-only pages of the circular, or utilize QR codes to generate more content than exists in the print world."

""With YouTube external annotations, we're trying to make it a very seamless process," said Lisa Green, industry director at Google. "If while you're watching it, you see something you really want, you can click... We've allowed the user to make the decision to make the purchase" in the video. The beta feature is available to all existing clients, although Google won't disclose how many advertisers have shown interest or signed up thus far. Juicy Couture, one of the first brands to adopt the shoppable feature, released a new video directed by Terry Richardson featuring Candice Swanepoel at the famed Chateau Marmont hotel. The fashion label features nineteen different products in the second video. YouTube's shoppable video ads will display a shaded rectangle in the middle of the screen whenever a product appears. When a user rolls over that embedded video link, the product name is displayed with a link to the purchase page. Google's product and sales teams are working with advertisers to bring these new ads into their videos on YouTube, Green said."

Between 2011 and 2012, the number of "mobile point-of-sale" terminals registered by businesses worldwide more than doubled, according to U.K. industry research firm Timetric. The newly released report doesn't see such a dramatic rate of uptake to continue year after year. But researchers do project that the percentage of checkout counters using mobile point-of-sale systems such as those offered by Square, ShopKeep, Intuit and PayPal will jump from fewer than one-fifth last year to nearly half by 2017.

Slightly more affordable tech? Also interesting comment here about how tablet sales are cannibalizing PC/laptop sales.

"Fast-growing Internet services like Netflix Inc. (NFLX), online movie purchases and DVD rentals from Redbox kiosks lifted U.S. home-video spending in the third quarter, countering the continued drop in DVD sales. Total sales rose 0.2 percent to $3.94 billion, the industry-backed Digital Entertainment Group said today in an e- mailed statement. Revenue from subscription streaming more than doubled while online purchases of movies and TV shows rose almost 38 percent, the group said."

After Apple CEO Tim Cook hinted Monday morning about a "record weekend" for sales of the new iPad, Apple this afternoon is confirming just how good of a weekend it was. Since the first iPads went on sale Friday morning, 3 million tablets have been sold, according to Apple.

"The study, which aimed to analyze consumer shopping behavior from the point of sale backwards, found that 31 percent of shoppers used YouTube to shop for apparel. And, 37 percent watched a video on a retail website to make a purchase."

3-tiered system of "everyday," "month-long value," and "best prices." No more coupons and sales to wait for

In a move to increase sales in South Korea, donut and coffee retailer Dunkin' Donuts is installing an ingenious technology into the buses in Seoul that will release coffee aroma into the air each time the Dunkin' Donuts radio jingle is being played. The technology uses a spray that they call "Flavor Radio" and it looks similar to other conventional sprayers used in homes. And the strategy seemed to work. The company said that since the campaign launched several months ago, they saw a 16 percent increase in visitors at Dunkin' Donuts shops near bus stops.

"McDonalds beacon case study (retail) 26 McDonald's franchises in Columbus, Georgia tested out iBeacon technology with its customers. Over the four week trial, the franchises were pushing special deals for McChicken Sandwiches and 10 piece Chicken McNuggets. The iBeacon powered promotions pushed McChicken Sandwich sales up 8 percent and Chicken McNugget sales up 7.5 percent. Based on the initial results of the pilot it looks as though McDonald's will continue to explore the technology for an additional 263 retail stores in the southeast. "Everyone is looking at their phones, millennials especially, and that's where we've decided to engage," Jack Pezold, a McDonald's franchisee of 40 years, said in a statement. Spotless beacon case study (enterprise) Spotless is an Australian owned and managed provider of integrated facilities management services. In 2014, Spotless partnered with Lighthouse to build and deploy a custom workforce management solution with the goal of reducing litigation claims in the commercial cleaning service line. The solution allowed Spotless to understand when cleaning KPI's are missed in real-time and produce employee location reports that can be used as legal defense against slip and fall litigation claims in shopping malls. Spotless has also been able to optimise their workforce and reduce operating costs by analyzing Lighthouse powered heat mapping of employee movements. The solution has been so successful that Spotless are extending the capability across other service lines including facilities management, security and maintenance. Read the full case study here. Pause Fest beacon case study (events) Pause Fest is Australia's premier digital event, aimed at supporting and showcasing the best in creative and tech from Australia and all over the world. In 2015, Pause Fest partnered with Lighthouse to deploy a network of beacons that delivered proximity based content and experiences to attendees, while enabling real-time event analyt

ideeli and Gilt Groupe making their members only sales local and customizable. Similar to Groupon, ideeli's local deals only become available once enough people purchase them.

sample sales on Facebook