Strategy

Green Bay, Wis. -- Shopko announced that veteran pharmacy executive Michael Cantrell has joined the company as senior VP, retail health. In this role, Cantrell will provide strategic direction for Shopko's pharmacy, optical and Rx e departments.  

Cantrell, a registered pharmacist and licensed attorney, is joining Shopko from Delhaize America, where he was VP of pharmacy. Prior to Delhaize America, Cantrell held various executive positions at AmerisourceBergen and Longs Drugs.

Senior editor Katherine Boccaccio and editor-in-chief Marianne Wilson sat down with retail real estate leaders and analysts in Las Vegas at RECon 2014.  See what each industry expert had to say about the retail landscape, trends in the industry, and projects to keep an eye on.

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Las Vegas -- The Hershey Company has opened a retail flagship, Hershey’s Chocolate World at New York-New York Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.

The store, which occupies two floors and has an eye-catching 74-ft. high Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Bar that visitors can walk through, is designed to provide shoppers with an experiential concept that immerses them in more than 800 candy and chocolate offerings.

Shopko has tapped veteran pharmacy executive Michael Cantrell as the company’s new SVP of retail health. Cantrell will report to CEO Peter McMahon.
 
A registered pharmacist and licensed attorney, Cantrell is joining Shopko from Delhaize America, where he was VP of pharmacy. Prior to Delhaize America, he held various executive positions at AmerisourceBergen and Longs Drugs.

Middleton, Wis. -- American Girl, a division of Mattel, announced plans to open its newest store at Scottsdale Quarter, an open-air lifestyle center owned by Glimcher Realty Trust and located in Scottsdale, Arizona.

The 12,000-sq.-ft. store is slated to open in late summer of 2015 and will be located within a new 180,000-sq.-ft. expansion of the property.

CashStar, a digital gifting company, has named John Caron as chief marketing officer to lead all strategic corporate and product marketing efforts in support of the company’s aggressive growth plans.

Bentonville, Ark. -- Sam's Club announced it will launch a new credit card using EMV chip-enabled technology on June 23, beating Target as the first mass retailer to move to the new technology. The new card — co-branded with MasterCard Inc. and issued by GE Capital Retail Bank — has an embedded chip that makes the card more difficult to duplicate, which provides enhanced security from fraudulent activity, according to Sam’s Club.

Undeterred by bad weather and competitive pressures that took a toll on its first quarter performance, Dollar General is pressing ahead with plans for 700 new stores, recently opened its 12th distribution center and believes its full year profit forecast is attainable.