"3-D printers could bring manufacturing to your home office" by Cecilia Kang at The Washington Post.  "This is definitely the year that 3-D printing is making a splash at the International Consumer Electronics Show, the annual bazaar of geek commerce. Last year, only one 3-D printing company showed up at the CES, which aims to showcase gadgets you might buy at Best Buy or Amazon, not at industrial supply stores. This week, four such companies will be there.  One of them — MakerBot, which also supplies devices to Ford — will unveil Tuesday a new 3-D printer designed to [...]

  "Lowe’s changes lack direction: analyst" by Andria Ching at MarketWatch.  "The series of merchandising, management, store and other changes made by the nation’s second-largest home-improvement retailer appear to “lack direction,” an analyst said on Monday...Her biggest concern: a new management structure announced in May to focus on customer experience and operations has led to both its head merchant and head of supply chain positions still remaining vacant after previous leaders were reassigned to other jobs, she said.  “We are starting to see the impact of having those vacancies,” Champine said in an interview, adding it’s been years since she [...]

  "The leaders in social commerce are not the usual suspects" by Stefany Moore at Internet Retailer.  "On average, retailers in the Social Media 300 get 4.25% of their total site traffic directly from Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Those numbers vary widely from top to bottom—ranging anywhere from 0.33% for sporting goods merchant The Sportsman’s Guide (No. 300) all the way to 30% of site traffic for PetFlow.com.  And while it may be surprising as to which merchants are landing in the top of the rankings, it’s also important to note which ones are missing. The largest online merchant, Amazon.com [...]

  "Rivals Object to Wal-Mart Ads" by Ann Zimmerman and Shelly Banjo at WSJ.  "An aggressive Wal-Mart Stores Inc.   advertising campaign that claims better prices than specific, named competitors has rankled rivals, which have complained to attorneys general in more than half a dozen states...The Bentonville, Ark., giant said last year that the initial ads spurred a 1.2% boost in sales at stores open at least a year and a 1.1% rise in store visits in areas where the ads aired, compared with similar regions where they didn't run. Likening the ads' techniques to reality shows, Wal-Mart U.S. President [...]

  "Facebook, Google dip their toes in sale of physical goods" by Brandon Bailey in San Jose Mercury News.  "Google in particular may have reason to be concerned. While it still dominates the business of selling advertising keyed to Internet search queries, online shoppers today are more likely to start their quests on Amazon than Google, according to some studies. If that trend continues, analysts warn, it could make Google's site less attractive to retail advertisers.  Facebook also has good reasons to offer shopping on its site, as the social network seeks to broaden its business beyond selling advertising and [...]

  Happy New Year !!!   "Amazon Is Not A Commerce Company" by Alex Williams at Tech Crunch.  "  ...It’s why 2013 will be the big year for the retail and computing giant. It’s all coming together with its growing cloud infrastructure, voluminous data streams and content. It’s what Ray Wang of Constellation Research calls “matrix commerce.”  Wang argues that Amazon is not a commerce company at all. It’s a big data company that has developed a cloud infrastructure that is profitable and subsidizes its retail operations. It has the mobile devices and content that it can spread through a [...]

  "Christmas Day retail traffic up 27% over 2011; Amazon & Walmart most visited sites" by Sean Ludwig at Venture Beat.   Here’s the top ten list: https://venturebeat.com/2012/12/27/christmas-day-retail-traffic-up-27-over-2011-amazon-walmart-most-visited-sites/#OL4A042irkdt3eXS.99   "Home Depot to Lowe’s Busiest Season Threatened by Strike" by Chris Burritt & Brooke Sutherland at Bloomberg.  "Home Depot Inc. and Lowe’s Cos. have the most at stake among retailers facing a dockworkers’ strike, with possible port closings cutting off shipments right before the lucrative gardening season.  Home Depot, the biggest U.S. home-improvement chain, is making plans in case 15,000 workers at ports from Maine to Texas walk off the job, [...]

  "US retail sales creep higher in weak holiday season-early data" at Reuters. "Holiday-related sales rose 0.7 percent from Oct. 28 through Dec. 24, compared with a 2 percent increase last year, according to data from MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse...The latest holiday season sales would be the worst performance since 2008, during the last recession.  "The broad brush was Christmas wasn't all that merry for retailers, and you have to ask what those margins look like if the top line didn't meet their expectations. So it could be a very unmerry Christmas for retailers," said Kim Forrest, senior equity research analyst at [...]