Marketing

The Nordstrom’s Customer Experience Center is a replica of a store where the department store operator can bring together salespeople, suppliers and customers to share feedback on new concepts before they are introduced to stores.

Sunnyvale, Calif. – Application support and maintenance (ASM) may hold potential to deliver $6.8 billion in savings to Fortune 2000 organizations. According to a survey of 300 U.S. and U.K. CIOs released by IT services provider HCL Technologies Ltd., ASM now accounts for 38% of large organizations’ overall IT budget each year.

Talk of nearshoring and a resurgent U.S. manufacturing sector weren’t enough to help the Stanley Furniture Company avoid shuttering a domestic manufacturing plant that employs 400 people.

Following steep losses last year, Stanley said it would close its 562,000-sq.-ft. facility in Robbinsville, NC., where ironically enough the company’s Young America line of Juvenile furniture was manufactured.

Minneapolis -- Target announced plans to open a store in Westwood, Mass., opening in March 2015.

The 135,000-sq.-ft. store will be part of the new University Station development. It will be the 26th Target store in the Boston area.

Arysta LifeScience president and CEO Wayne Hewett will stand for election to The Home Depot’s board of directors when current director Bonnie Hill steps down.

Los Angeles – An electronic musician reportedly planted 5,000 copies of his own CD inside fake copies of the Justin Bieber “Believe” CD in retailers including Best Buy, Target and Wal-Mart on April 1. According to the Associated Press, the musician, Paz Dylan, said he saw the stunt as more of a performance art piece than an April Fools’ Day prank.

Premium denim brand True Religion named former top executives from Levi Strauss & Co., and Gap inc., to its board of directors.

The purveyor of premium products said John Anderson and Marka Hansen agreed to serve on its board. Anderson spent 32 years at Levi Strauss & Co, ultimately serving as president and CEO while Hansen previously spent 24 years at Gap and most recently served as president of Gap North America.

New York -- Discount supermarket operator Aldi has acquired a 55-acre site in Moreno Valley, Calif., on which it will build its Southern California regional headquarters. The planned 800,000-sq.-ft. facility would serve as Aldi’s West Coast regional office and distribution center as it looks to expand into the Southern California market.

In December, Aldi announced plans to open 650 stores in the United States during the next five years.