Clogged Ports Put Fall, Holiday Shipments in Doubt (wsj.com)

Adobe released online shopping data for the 2023 holiday season, covering the period from Nov. 1 through Dec. 31, 2023. 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 $222.1 billion online from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31, up 4.9% year-over-year (YoY) and setting a new record for e-commerce. A total of $123.5 billion was spent online in the month of November (up 6% YoY), bolstered by a strong Cyber Week—the five days between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday—which drove $38 billion in spend online (up 7.8% YoY). In December, consumers spent a total of $98.6 billion online (up 3.7% YoY), driven in part by discounts that lingered past Cyber Monday.

Additional second quarter service performance scores covering Jan.1 through Feb. 4 included: *First-Class Mail: 86.1 percent of First-Class Mail delivered on time against the USPS service standard, a decrease of 3 percentage points from the fiscal first quarter. *Marketing Mail: 90.9 percent of Marketing Mail delivered on time against the USPS service standard, a decrease of 1.3 percentage points from the fiscal first quarter. *Periodicals: 79.5 percent of Periodicals delivered on time against the USPS service standard, a decrease of 1.4 percentage points from the fiscal first quarter.

Yankee Publishing Inc. (YPI), which sold a minority interest to its Employee Stock Ownership Plan in 2012, sold the remaining shares to the ESOP on June 30 of this year, making it a 100% employee-owned company. Founded in 1935, the firm publishes Yankee, the Old Farmer’s Almanac, New Hampshire Magazine and Family Tree Magazine.