U.S. e-commerce sales up 25% in June (chainstoreage.com)

1-800-Flowers.com®, one of the world's leading floral providers, announced it has collaborated with global design talent, Jason Wu, to release an exclusive assortment of modern and elegant bouquets. The Jason Wu for Wild Beauty™ collection, which is now available nationwide, features on-trend arrangements that embody the designer's signature aesthetic of femininity and sophistication. Behind-the-scenes content, specially designed 'thank you' notes and the ability to preview select bouquets in 3D will allow customers to have an immersive digital experience as they are introduced to the new collection. This marks Jason Wu's first collaboration with a floral and gifting brand. "Jason Wu is one of the world's most renowned fashion designers and we are thrilled to collaborate with him on this truly original collection, which reflects his unique point of view in floral design and bouquet presentation," said Valerie Ghitelman, Vice President, Product Development and Design, 1-800-Flowers.com. "We are excited to not only share these beautifully crafted arrangements with our customers, but to engage them with distinctive content that provides insights into Jason's design influences and more." "Playing a role in the intimate decision of what one chooses to wear each day is such an important part of what I do," said Jason Wu. "To extend this concept to the graceful details people bring into their homes is an honor. This collection with 1-800-Flowers.com is especially meaningful to me because of my lifelong love of flowers. Floral elements continuously inspire me and have been a consistent theme throughout my entire career. I'm thrilled to celebrate the beauty of flowers in this new and special way."

As the Postal Service enters the busiest weeks of the year for mailing and shipping, the agency reported new service delivery performance scores that showed improvements for First-Class Mail and Periodicals, and steady performance for Marketing Mail for the first six weeks of the fiscal first quarter. First quarter-to-date service performance scores covering the period Oct. 1 through Nov. 12 included: *First-Class Mail: 91.1 percent of First-Class Mail delivered on time against the USPS service standard, an improvement of 2.6 percentage points from the fourth quarter. *Marketing Mail: 92.4 percent of Marketing Mail delivered on time against the USPS service standard, consistent with performance from the fourth quarter. *Periodicals: 83.2 percent of Periodicals delivered on time against the USPS service standard, an improvement of .5 percentage points from the fourth quarter.

Mail order and publishing executives once followed every hiccup within the U.S. Postal Service. Their businesses depended on it. Those days aren’t over for publishers, judging by an article that appeared last week in The Washington Post. Periodical rates could leap by 8% on Aug. 29, a potentially devastating hit to struggling community newspapers, forcing them to reduce staffs and distribution, critics say. Such a hike could be the tipping point for survival for those publishers, Paul Boyle, senior vice president at the News Media Alliance, told WaPo. However, the USPS contends the impact will not be that serious.