Consumer Affairs & Relations

New York -- American Apparel Inc. announced  four new directors to its board, including the company’s first-ever female board member, Colleen Brown, a former CEO of Fisher Communications, and former Walgreens executive Joseph Magnacca, who took the reins as CEO of RadioShack last year.  

The other new directors are  David Glazek, a partner with hedge fund Standard General, which holds a nearly 44% stake in American Apparel, and Thomas J. Sullivan, a director of Media General.

Midvale, Utah – Sportsman’s Warehouse Inc. is opening a store in Spokane, Washington, in early 2015. This location will be the first of eight planned stores that will open during 2015, making a total of 63 retail stores open and operating by the end of 2015.

Footwear maker Crocs is undergoing a major restructuring that includes closing stores and job cutbacks.

The plan comes on the heels of the company's disappointing second-quarter earnings results. Earlier this month, Crocs reported that second-quarter profit fell 44% to $19.7 million.

San Jose, Calif. – EBay Inc. is still planning to expand its operations in Russia despite U.S. sanctions against the country’s government. In public comments made in Moscow, EBay VP Wendy Jones said Russia is EBay’s top priority for expansion of its EBay Marketplaces division, and that eBay Marketplaces should go live in Russia in September.

Jones also said EBay doubled its Russian buyer base in 2013 and sold $425 million worth of goods there in 2012. Currently, Russian consumers make 90,000 EBay transactions per day.

Whirlpool Corporation reported net sales of about $4.7 billion in the second quarter of 2014, virtually unchanged from the company's performance in the same quarter last year.

Net sales for the three months ended June 30 totaled $4.68 billion, down 1.4% from $4.75 billion in 2013.

The company's bottom line read $179 million for the quarter, down from $198 million in the second quarter of last year.

San Francisco – StubHub, the online ticket resale platform operated by EBay, has reportedly been hacked by a global organized fraud ring. According to Reuters, cyber thieves obtained user credentials used on other sites and then used them to gain access to StubHub accounts and make fraudulent purchases.

Dayton, Ohio -- Interbrand, a leading global brand consultancy, announced Wednesday that Lee Carpenter is leaving his current position as CEO of the North America region. Carpenter, CEO of Interbrand North America since 2007, will step down from his full-time role, effective July 23. He will continue to advise Interbrand during the next three months, but has decided to focus his attention on other personal opportunities.   

The National Retail Federation has joined the growing chorus of voices expecting a surge in consumer spending during the next five months to compensate for a weak start to the year.