Marketing

Owning the shopping experience of the future is how Gap chairman and CEO Glenn Murphy described the motivation behind a wide range of omnichannel strategies he and other senior executives shared during an annual meeting with investors.

Murphy and Gap’s top division heads provided an overview of strategic initiatives designed to achieve long-term, profitable growth across its portfolio of brands and also highlighted how the company plans to use technology, innovation and scale as competitive advantages as it looks to deliver a world class omnichannel experience.

West Chester, Pa. – QVC Inc. plans to expand its European presence into France. With the launch of the new service scheduled for the second quarter of 2015, QVC will expand its e-commerce business to seven operations reaching nine countries.

Cheshunt, U.K. – Philip Clarke, CEO of leading U.K. grocery and general merchandise retailer Tesco plc is publicly resisting calls for his resignation following a 6% decline in annual profits and 3% quarterly drop in U.K. same-store sales. Tesco has reported falling profits for two consecutive years following 20 years of continual profit growth.

Brentwood, Tenn. -- Tractor Supply Company announced that Lee Downing has been promoted to executive VP store operations, effective April 14. In conjunction with his promotion, he will assume added leadership responsibilities for the company's real estate team.

In addition to leading the store operations and store support administration teams, Downing will be responsible for the strategic new store site selection, facilitation of store openings and ongoing maintenance, in addition to other real estate functions.

Itasca, Ill. -- Jewel-Osco has appointed Scott Hays as VP operations for the Chicagoland supermarket chain.

Most recently a district manager with Albertsons LLC’s Southern division, Hays will lead the operations team to support Jewel-Osco’s marketing and merchandising initiatives, including the company’s upcoming remodels and opening their five newly acquired Dominick’s locations.

Ahold USA has appointed Amy Hahn to the newly created position of SVP marketing effective April 28. In this role, Hahn will lead and drive critical initiatives of strategic marketing, market insights and analytics, advertising, promotion, brand development, corporate communications, innovation, digital strategy and execution.

She will also be responsible for developing digital retailing and loyalty plans.

City of Commerce, Calif. – 99 Cents Only Stores LLC reported a widening net loss in an abbreviated 10-month fiscal 2014 which was shortened from the Saturday closest to the end of March to the Friday closest to the end of January. Net loss grew to $12.48 million from $8.9 million.

Total net sales were $1.53 billion, down 8% from $1.66 billion. Same-store sales rose 3.7%.

nGage Labs, a leading provider of personalized mobile engagement technology, has named Dave Alberty as CFO.

Alberty was most recently SVP and global controller of TriVita, a multi-national supplement company based in Scottsdale, Ariz.