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Vitacost.com turned in a pretty good top-line performance in its first quarter as a public company, but costs related to the initial public offering also resulted in a higher net loss. For the first three quarters sales grew 34.3%. Sales increased 31.9% to $48.4 million from $36.7 million in the prior year. Meanwhile, marketing expenses increased year over year 19.4% to $3.7 million from $3.1 million. Read the full article

The retailer is charting an aggressive course for its holiday season marketing strategy in an effort to reach cost-conscious shoppers. The company says it anticipates online sales during the holidays will grow by 30%. Among the investments are more emphasis on social networking (Facebook) and renewed focus on e-mail marketing (Kohl’s says its database grew 50% this past year and its planning on sending 17 separate e-mail campaigns in November and another 30 in December). Finally, visitors at Kohls.com will see a new gift finder tool and an interactive “holiday hint list.” Read the full article

The company announced that its online customers inside and outside the U.S. can pay in 12 different currencies and that the online store will ship to 30 countries. “We are excited about this opportunity to better serve our customers internationally,” says Jamie Nordstrom, president of Nordstrom Direct. “We’ve made it a lot easier for our customers abroad to shop from Nordstrom.com. We will continue looking for ways to improve the shopping experience for customers, no matter where they live.” Read the full article

The leading drugstore chain posted a bigger-than-expected jump in quarterly profit as consumers filled more prescriptions. CVS earned $1.02 billion, up from $732.5 million a year earlier. Net revenue jumped 18.1% to $24.64 billion. Sales at stores open at least a year rose 5.7 percent. In August, CVS had forecast a same-store sales increase of 6 - 8 percent. Read the full article

Google handed online retailers and ecommerce Web sites an early holiday gift in hopes of improving conversions and reducing bounce rates. The company has introduced Google Commerce Search, a site search feature geared toward retail and ecommerce sites. The Commerce Search API allows retailers to customize the search experience on their Web site. Special features, such as the ability to design the site for specific promotions, enable companies to control product placement on the page, from the top to the bottom of search results. Read the full article

The Network Advertising Initiative is unveiling a new tool that allows people who want to avoid behavioral targeting to permanently preserve their opt-out cookies. Currently, Web users who don’t want to receive targeted ads can opt out via cookies. But those cookies have notoriously short lives -- often because users who want to avoid tracking frequently delete all of their cookies, including the opt-out cookies. Once the opt-out cookies disappear, behavioral targeting companies revert to tracking users and serving them targeted ads. The new NAI Consumer Opt-Out Protector, preserves the cookies that opt out of behavioral targeting by NAI members even when consumers attempt to delete all of their cookies. Read the full article

Senior marketers, ask yourselves: Is marketing’s inability to get the type of traction it seeks within your organization real or self-imposed? A recent study has several alarming findings that point to the need for marketers to start taking back control of their destiny, within their own organizations. One of the most telling findings is that while almost 70% of those surveyed view themselves as visionary marketers or leaders, the vast majority of them state that the way they actually spend their time is heavily focused on tactical behaviors, such as working the budget, operating month-to-month and being guided by a short-term marcomm plan. Thus, many marketers are creating their own self-fulfilling prophecy. Read the full article

Retailers are reporting some encouraging trends from October as they head into the holiday shopping season. Sales during the month, traditionally a time of fall clearance, were better than expected for many retailers. "There’s generally momentum in the business," said Leslie Wexner, chief executive of Limited Brands. Retailers are in a stronger position than a year ago. Inventory levels are much leaner, meaning fewer dramatic markdowns to clear excess wares. And most of the promotions have been carefully planned—unlike the fire sales that retailers held a year ago. That could help lift retailers’ profit margins. "The confidence is just beginning to come back to the business," said Glenn Murphy, Gap’s chief executive, last month. "We’re walking a little taller." Read the full article at The Wall Street Journal

Overstock.com posted higher web sales for the third quarter, but e-commerce revenue is down for the year to date. Sales increased 4.4% to $195.1 million from $186.9 million in the third quarter of 2008. Spending on technology in the third quarter amounted to 6.4% of total sales, or $12.4 million. Spending on marketing totaled $12.2 million or 6.3% of total sales. CEO Patrick Byrne said, “As we move into our peak selling season, our inventory is good and we are well-positioned to deliver great deals to the cost-conscious consumer.” Read the full article

The new site includes many customer-friendly features such as larger images and advanced product search functionality. The new site also supports many of the creative promotional and sale events that were previously offered only in the Company`s retail stores. R. Neal Black, President and CEO of JoS. A. Bank, stated: “The result is a customer-friendly, state-of-the-art site which is faster and easier to use, and which includes richer and more detailed content. While we will continue to fine-tune the site to maximize its capabilities, we have already experienced better conversion rates and we believe the enhanced site will help us continue to expand our Internet sales.” Read the full article