Corporate Governance

Founding officer of Costco dies at 72
Issaquah, Wash. -- Robert Craves, 72, a founding officer of Costco, died last week shortly after being diagnosed with cancer, The Seattle Times reported.
Alibaba reports $9.3 billion in sales on China’s “Singles Day” sales event
New York -- Alibaba Group Holding Limited announced that it hosted $9.3 billion in sales on China’s “Singles Day,” an annual sales event held on Nov. 11.

The E-commerce giant said that 43 of all Singles Day transactions came through mobile devices, up from 21% in 2013.

REI names its first-ever chief creative officer

Seattle -- Outdoor outfitter REI has added a chief creative officer slot, and hired Ben Steele to fill the position, effective Jan. 1. Steele most recently served as executive creative director at global brand firm Hornall Anderson in Seattle.
Research: Food shoppers opt for brick-and-mortar over online

Chicago -- Although consumers are changing how they shop for food and beverages, most prefer to make perishable purchases in tradition brick-and-mortar locations.
Deeper Dive: Apple Pay vs. CurrentC

CurrentC, the mobile payment service under development from a retailer consortium known as Merchant Customer Exchange, or MCX, has been getting a lot of attention in the past week. First MCX members CVS and Rite Aid disabled their NFC payment systems to block the rival ApplePay mobile payment service, and then hackers stole the emails of CurrentC users. And despite all this publicity, CurrentC is still in pilot mode.
Kurt Salmon: Retailers to speed up holiday online processing/shipping by two days

New York -- Amid a public fight for Thanksgiving weekend foot traffic, retailers are also battling behind the scenes to prepare for peak-season e-commerce orders. According to a new Kurt Salmon survey, retailers will reduce their processing and shipping time frames for multi-item orders by almost two days this holiday season.
Retail imports set records despite West Coast port issues

Washington -- Import cargo volume at the nation’s major retail container ports is expected to slow down this month following record levels seen in September and October as retailers rushed to bring merchandise into the country ahead of a possible shutdown of West Coast ports, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates. 
Best Buy to open 5 p.m. on Thanksgiving, one hour earlier than last year

Minneapolis -- Best Buy has joined the ranks of retailers that have moved up the time their stores will open on Thanksgiving Day. The consumer electronics giant said Tuesday that some 1,000 of its stores will open at 5 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day, which is one hour earlier than last year. The stores will close at 1 a.m. Friday before reopening at 8 a.m. on November 28 (Black Friday) and close at 10 p.m. that day.
SAP and Samsung partner on mobile devices for business, including payments solution

New York -- Samsung Electronics and SAP SE are partnering to deliver enterprise mobility solutions for a number of industries, including an integrated payments solution.
Luxottica Group goes live with JDA solution

Bracknell, England -- JDA Software Group announced that eyewear manufacturer/marketer Luxottica Group SpA has gone live with its implementation of JDA Supply Chain Planner, from the JDA Manufacturing Planning.
Best Buy opening earlier on Thanksgiving

The dishes from Thanksgiving dinner will barely be dry when Best Buy stores open at 5 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 28, to treat shoppers to an early wave of doorbuster deals.
Big Lots creates new national holiday

Retailers employ all manner of promotional tactics to drive holiday sales and this year Big Lots has even created a new national occasion to serve as the basis of a promotion.

The leading closeout retailer has declared Nov. 16-22 as the nation’s first “Decorate Your Home for the Holidays Week,” to provide inspiration and motivation to shoppers to begin decking the halls this holiday season.