Corporate Governance

Petco is leveraging the combined power of video and celebrities with its latest promotion, "Think Adoption First."

In announcing its Costco-like membership model, Jet.com (yet to launch as of this writing) has positioned itself as the latest type of online retail marketplace. Considering that online marketplaces really go back to the days of CompuServe, Prodigy and Earthlink (extra points if you know what “dial up” means), I’ve been struck by how much marketplaces have been in the news lately. Think about Alibaba’s jaw-dropping $9.3 billion sales on Singles Day (Nov.

An early Easter helped Stein Mart post an impressive 7.9% boost in same store sales for the first quarter.

Stein Mart reported sales of $244.4 million for the nine weeks ending April 4, a 10.6% increase over that period the year before. The sales growth was especially strong in March, according to the release.

The company reported $155.8 million in sales for the five weeks ending April 4, a 14.2% increase over that time the year before. Same store sales were up 11.2% for March. 

After reporting standout results for the holiday quarter, Costco had a drop in same store sales in March that the retailer blamed on the earlier-than-normal Easter holiday.

Retailers and consumer goods companies already know that California leads the nation when it comes to burdensome regulatory requirements. Now, the situation could go from bad to worse with enforcement looming of a complex law known as the Transparency in Supply Chains Act.

New York -- Tiger, the Danish discount chain known for its low prices and design emphasis, is entering the United States, opening a 5,000-sq.-ft. flagship in May, in New York City.

Tiger stores offer a quirky, ever-changing selection of exclusive products across a wide variety of categories, including home, toys, hobby, party, snacks, electronics, gadgets, fashion accessories and seasonal. The majority of its products, roughly half of which are designed in house, sell for $10 or less.

San Francisco – Jins Eyewear, Japan’s largest eyewear brand by volume, will open its first U.S. store on April 10, in San Francisco's Union Square neighborhood. The 4,900-sq.-ft. space will house more than 1,200 different styles of Jins exclusive eyewear.

San Francisco – Alibaba.com has collaborated with e-commerce platform to Bigcommerce deliver an integrated shopping experience for sourcing products from Alibaba.com’s network of Chinese wholesale suppliers. The Alibaba.com Wholesale solution is immediately available to Bigcommerce’s 70,000 stores, and online merchants can now access and purchase a collection of more than 30,000 products from about 300 of Alibaba.com’s Gold Suppliers in China with scope to expand to more than three million products from thousands of Gold Suppliers.

Mountain View, Calif. – Google is reportedly planning to launch a service that will compete with Amazon Home Services later this spring. According to BuzzFeed, Google will integrate a new product into its core search functionality that will directly connect users searching for service providers such as plumbers and electricians to the providers.