Corporate Governance

It’s official: Wal-Mart is ready to service a new online customer base.   Wal-Mart’s acquisition of Jet.com was finalized yesterday, a move that extends the chain’s already vast digital presence.  

The new Hamilton Crossings shopping center in Lower Macungie Township, Pennsylvania, will benefit from an innovative new traffic control system that manages signal timing based on continuously monitored traffic volumes.   The system allows traffic approaching the center from a major artery to the mall “largely unstopped” by lights, township engineer Alan Fornwalt told Allentown’s Morning Call.  

MarineMax, the nation’s largest recreational boat and yacht retailer, has promoted longtime associate Brett McGill to COO, effective October 1, 2016.   McGill has served as executive VP operations at MarineMax since October 1, 2015 after serving as VP of West operations since May 2012. He began his career with MarineMax at its formation in 1998 and served in several roles with the company in positions that included director of information services and eventually VP of information technology, service and arts, before 

Macy’s is the latest retailer to announce it will hire roughly the same amount of holiday employees as last year.    This holiday season, the department store giant plans to hire approximately 83,000 associates for positions across its Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s stores, call centers, distribution centers and online fulfillment centers nationwide.   

Although most Americans are still irritated to see holiday items appear in the store alongside Halloween goodies and don’t like stores being open on Thanksgiving, attitudes are beginning to change.   

Eataly is taking its Italian food marketplace format to Canada.   The company announced plans to open its first Canadian location in early 2019, as an anchor tenant of the newly renovated Manulife Centre in Toronto.   Eataly, which combines food markets, restaurants, and eateries, will span three stories for a total space of 50,000 sq. ft.  

Shoptalk Commerce, the organizer of U.S. retail and e-commerce event Shoptalk, announced the launch of Shoptalk Europe, to be held at The Bella Center in Copenhagen on October 9-11, 2017, following Shoptalk’s U.S. event, which will take place at the Aria in Las Vegas on March 19-22, 2017.  

Helzberg Diamonds is committed to “making people feel loved.”   By adopting a set of multichannel customer experience management solutions, the jeweler is taking the next step to “wowwing” its shoppers with more personalized customer service cross-channel.