Strategy

Walmart met low second quarter sales and profit expectations it set for itself but significantly lowered its full year outlook due to a tepid third quarter sales forecast and increased e-commerce and health care costs.

Dallas – Net loss at specialty jewelry retailer DSGE Inc. roughly tripled to $4.45 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2014 from $1.12 million in the same period a year earlier. Writeoffs related to the closure of DSGE’s Southern Bullion banner drove the net loss increase.

Same store sales growth of 6% and e-commerce strength helped J.C. Penney dramatically reduce its second quarter operating loss and demonstrate growing momentum of its turnaround.

Sales at the operator of 1,060 stores increased to $2.8 billion from $2.66 billion and the 6% comp increase the company reported was against an easy prior year comparison when comps declined 11.5%. Online sales through jcp.com were $249 million for the quarter, up 16.7 % versus the same period last year.

Plano, Texas – Pizza Hut Inc. is deploying energy management systems from Entouch Controls at 500 corporate stores. The company plans to recommend the Entouch technology to its 5,800 franchised stores, as well.

Walmart U.S. president and CEO Greg Foran, just six days into his new job when Walmart reported second quarter results, shared some general and familiar insights on driving growth.

Los Angeles - The Canadian market offers an opportunity for U.S. retailers to expand and to gain experience operating in an international market. According to a new study from market research firm IbisWorld, the U.S. retail segment best suited for expansion into Canada is department stores, followed by men’s clothing stores.

BitPay, a payment service provider (PSP) specializing in e-commerce, B2B and enterprise solutions for the bitcoin digital currency, has expanded its San Francisco office with several new hires.

The company has named Sonny Singh as its chief commercial officer to oversee all sales operations. With more than 15 years of experience in helping to grow tech companies, Singh will be responsible for increasing BitPay’s customer base of more than 40,000 merchants.
 

Singapore -- Two retail chains in Singapore, Cold Storage and Guardian, have selected the Pricer ESL (electronic shelf label) solution in their stores and the rollout is planned to be completed by the end of 2015. The two chains are under the umbrella of The Dairy Farm Group.

Cold Storage operates about 50 large supermarkets in Singapore while Guardian operates 150 pharmacy stores.