Marketing

Vizstar, an aggregator of companies and products in the organic cosmetic, wellness and skincare space, plans to expand its USDA-certified organics line to more than 100 products.

Vizstar CEO Kimberly Parry will launch Little Prana (mommy/baby line) to the mass markets in November. All products are certified organic. The company reports a strong demand for the product line following the Cosmoprof show in Bologna, Italy.

Petco has opened its first store in Mexico and announced plans for continued expansion in Mexico and Latin America through a previously announced joint venture with Grupo Gigante of Mexico. Together, the companies plan to open as many as 50 Petco stores in Mexico and Latin America by 2020.

A compressed shopping season coupled with the continued growth of e-commerce has UPS forecasting that peak season daily package volumes will grow by 8%.

Woodland Hills, Calif. — GrowLife has announced the opening of its seventh store in Santa Rosa, Calif., on Oct. 25.

GrowLife Hydroponics operates in the legal cannabis industry with online and brick-and-mortar stores.

The Walt Disney Company said it would enter China in 2015 with a new retail location planned for Shanghai that measures 10,800-sq.-ft. on a 53,000-sq.-ft. site in the heart of the city’s financial district.
Disney currently operates 340 worldwide locations but until this week’s announcement in Shanghai had steered clear of opening stores in mainland China.

New York -- The former chief marketing officer of Kohl’s, Julie Gardner, has joined the board of Cardtronics, which operates more than 80,000 ATMs at locations throughout the United States and internationally.

Gardner spent 14 years at Kohl’s and most recently served as executive VP and chief marketing officer. Prior to Kohl’s, Gardner was with the Eckerd Corp., a regional drugstore chain that was eventually acquired by CVS.

New York -- Brooks Brothers today announced that Mary Pytko has joined the company as its new executive VP of global human resources.

Pytko has held leadership roles at companies including American Express and Lord & Taylor. Most recently she was senior VP, human resources at the Thomson Reuters Corporation.

The retail industry couldn’t function if it weren’t for the efforts of store managers at the front lines of running the day-to-day business, executing corporate strategies, managing people and serving customers.