Emboldened by rapid growth in e-commerce shipping, the cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service is moving aggressively this holiday season to start a premium service for the internet shopper seeking the instant gratification of a store purchase: same-day package delivery.

CaroTrans, a non-vessel operating common carrier and ocean freight consolidator, has introduced four direct, less-than-containerload services from China to Valparaiso, Chile.

Corporations spinning off businesses, private equity investment in retail, continued cross-border activity and expansion into e-commerce drove retail and consumer merger and acquisition activity in the third quarter of 2012, according to PwC's US retail and consumer M+A insights report.

Wal-Mart Stores reported that its investigation into violations of a federal anti-bribery law had extended beyond Mexico to China, India and Brazil, some of the retailer's most important international markets.

It's an often overlooked area of the supply chain, with a woeful record of success. Josefin Aspegren, marketing director with Optilon, talks about the challenge of assessing the efficacy of trade-promotion programs.

More than 80 percent of U.S. consumers and, perhaps more surprising, over 60 percent of Chinese consumers say that they are willing to pay more for products labeled "Made in USA" than for those labeled "Made in China," according to research by The Boston Consulting Group.

Some 19 percent of consumers plan to spend more or substantially more (5 percent) on holiday gifts this year versus last year, according to the ICSC-Goldman Sachs 2012 Holiday Spending Intentions Survey. This is the highest percentage of consumers reporting they intend to increase spending over the previous holiday season since the International Council of Shopping Centers began asking the question in 2004.

A ring of Canadian thieves who were caught with 30,700 stolen payment-card numbers is providing a view inside the process of tampering with PIN pads - and it's not pretty. On November 9, Toronto police said a five-man gang had tens of thousands of stolen card numbers on PCs and USB thumb-drives, along with at least a dozen stolen POS devices.

Trace One has enhanced PL PLM, its product lifecycle-management application for private labels.