Is Simon & Schuster a Bargain at $1.7 Billion? (publishersweekly.com)

Penguin Random House has named Madeline McIntosh, previously president of the Penguin Publishing Group, CEO of Penguin Random House US. The position is a newly created one. Additionally, Allison Dobson, formerly senior v-p of strategy and finance at Penguin Publishing Group, has been promoted to president of Penguin Publishing Group, succeeding McIntosh. Dohle, who will remain based in New York City, said the creation of McIntosh’s position speaks to “the size and importance of the U.S. business for Penguin Random House worldwide." He added: "Now is the right time for dedicated leadership in our U.S. market." Under the newly announced PRH structure, McIntosh, who will report to Dohle, will be responsible for all PRH US adult and children’s publishing groups (among them Crown, Knopf, Penguin, Penguin Young Readers, Random House, and RH Childrens). The publisher's operations, sales, author platforms, digital publishing development, and audio publishing departments will now report to McIntosh. Click Read More below for additional information.

Amazon Prime members saved more than $1 billion across millions of deals during Prime Big Deal Days on October 10 and 11. For the second year, Amazon kicked off the holiday shopping season with a two-day exclusive shopping event for Prime members, helping members get everything they want and need, quickly and reliably across hundreds of millions of items worldwide. “Prime Big Deal Days was a strong start to the holiday shopping season, offering Prime members an exclusive early opportunity to save and surpassing our expectations. This event outpaced last year’s holiday kick-off event, with more Prime members shopping this year,” said Doug Herrington, CEO of Worldwide Amazon Stores. “Millions of Prime packages in the U.S. have already been delivered, and we’ll continue to offer fast, free delivery across our wide selection throughout the holidays. Thank you to our employees and selling partners around the world for their continued commitment to our customers as we head into this busy shopping season.”

Adobe released online shopping data for the first four months of 2024, covering the period from Jan. 1 to Apr. 30, 2024. Based on Adobe Analytics data, the report provides the most comprehensive view into U.S. e-commerce by analyzing commerce transactions online, covering over one trillion visits to U.S. retail sites, 100 million SKUs and 18 product categories. Adobe Analytics is part of Adobe Experience Cloud, relied upon by over 85% of the top 100 internet retailers in the U.S.* to deliver, measure and personalize shopping experiences online. Consumers spent $331.6 billion online from Jan. 1 to Apr. 30, 2024, up 7% year-over-year (YoY). The growth has been supported by stable spend in discretionary categories including electronics and apparel, along with a continued surge in grocery shopping online. Adobe expects the first half of 2024 to drive over $500 billion in spend online, representing 6.8% YoY growth.