$816 million online sales in one day

Black Friday Internet sales in the US totalled $816m, a 26% gain on last year, claimed Comscore. IBM Coremetrics put the rise at 24%. By comparison, Visa Europe said it believed November 28, 2011 will be the UK's busiest Internet shopping day, with £303m spent online.

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, is treated by many retailers as the start of the Christmas shopping season. They offer one-off discounts to mark the occasion.

Amazon was the most popular destination, with 50% more visitors than any other retailer.Walmart, Best Buy, Target and Apple were next in line, said the analytics company. Around 50 million Americans visited online retail sites on Friday, November 25, 2011, according to Comscore.

Close to 123 million Americans planned to make an online purchase on Cyber Monday (November 28, 2011) according to a survey commissioned by the US National Retail Federation, an industry lobby group. That would be a 15% increase on last year.

Document and print management services

NOV 2011:  Child Health Corporation of America  has awarded WorkflowOne, a provider of print management, marketing and distribution services a three-year contract for document and print management services. WorkflowOne will provide CHCA with aggregated cost savings on print-based documents, as well as consulting services to manage document lifecycles, online ordering capabilities and web-based document collaboration tools. 

November snapshot: A/E/C

NOV 2011:  Shell has awarded KBR  a two-year contract extension for maintenance and construction services at three of its Houston, Texas research centers: Westhollow Research Center, Bellaire Research Center and Gasmer Research Center.

NOV 2011:  The City of Crest Hill, Illinois has awarded Insituform Technologies, Inc a $5.6 million contract to install approximately 135,000 feet of small- to medium-diameter Insituform® cured-in-place pipe (CIPP) in residential neighborhoods throughout Crest Hill, beginning in January 2012. 

November snapshot: consumer catering retail...

Nov 2011:  Zoup! Fresh Soup Company has selected the NEXTEP Foundation5 platform for enterprise rollout at all 40 live locations and future locations. Starting with the Zoup! Somerset Collection location in Troy, MI, Zoup! is employing NEXTEP front of house solutions including Point-of-Sale, Dynamic Digital Menu Displays™, Order Management System, and integrated Online Ordering. With the new solution, Zoup! will now individually label each soup, salad, and sandwich. Zoup! is also using NEXTEP’s back of house solution including inventory management and labor management. Zoup!’s “next step” will be a smartphone app for ordering from anywhere, followed by a pilot of NEXTEP’s Self Order Kiosks. 

Aeronautics in October 2011

OCT 2011:  Bell Helicopter, a Textron Inc. company has provided new purchase orders to CPI Aerostructures, Inc. totaling $1.4 million, for the manufacture of various assemblies for the AH-1Z ZULU attack helicopter.

OCT 2011:  Sikorsky Aircraft Corp has awarded CPI Aerostructures, Inc. a schedule agreement valued at up to approximately $2.3 million to manufacture gunner window assemblies for the BLACK HAWK helicopter. This new agreement is a follow-on to the $2 million agreement announced in late 2010.

Marketing in October, 2011

OCT 2011:  Fresh®, Inc. has selected marketing technology provider Neolane, Inc. to consolidate customer data and gain the insight necessary to build and sustain deeper, more significant lifetime relationships with its customers and prospects. Using a centralized database from which to manage customer interactions, Fresh gains a 360-degree marketing view of each customer to improve segmentation and develop more targeted, effective cross-channel marketing campaigns. 

Transportation in October 2011

OCT 2011:  National Joint Powers Alliance® (NJPA) has awarded Wright Express Corporation the fleet card vendor contract. The benefit of NJPA membership enables municipalities to reduce fuel management costs, while avoiding a complex agency request for proposal (RFP) process. NJPA, a municipal contracting government agency, has a membership base exceeding over 35,000 agencies serving education, non-profit and all types of government entities. The government agency’s goal is to add a fuel management card program for its government fleet members.