Corporate Governance

Washington, D.C. - Shop.org is adding two new members to its board of directors and welcoming back eight members that currently serve on the board. Each member will serve a two-year term.

New Shop.org Board members:

• Bryon Colby, senior VP of digital commerce, Cornerstone Brands/HSNi; and
• Deepika Pandey, group VP, customer experience, direct and digital marketing, Walgreen Co.

Washington, D.C. – The U.S. Secret Service has reportedly arrested a Russian national for hacking into consumer credit card data between February 2009 and October 2011. According to Fox Business News, Roman Valerevich Seleznev, 45, was arrested July 5 for hacking into the networks of unspecified U.S. companies.

New York -- Crumbs Bake Shops on Monday closed its 48 stores. The cupcake store chain has been struggling for some time. In a May filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, it warned that it "may be forced to curtail or cease its activities" if its operations didn't generate enough cash flow.

Last week, Nasdaq suspended the trading of Crumbs shares on the grounds that the company no longer had at least $2.5 million in shareholder equity, or met benchmarks for an annual net profit.

Having passed the calendar’s mid-point, we thought it would be interesting to take a look at the most viewed stories of the year to date on Chainstoreage.com.

A longtime HSN executive has been promoted to president of HSN. Bill Brand has been at HSNi since 2006 as SVP programming and has been the company’s chief marketing officer — a post he’ll maintain alongside his new position — since 2013.
 

Canton, Mass. - Dunkin' Donuts has signed a multi-unit store development agreement with new franchisees Wendover Donuts LLC to develop five restaurants in North and South Greensboro, North Carolina. The locations will incorporate traditional and combination unit development with sister brand, Baskin-Robbins, with the first store planned to open in 2015.

Mumbai, India – In a move that may have implications for Wal-Mart, French retailer Carrefour S.A. will reportedly shutter its five Indian wholesale stores by the end of September 2014. According to Reuters, Carrefour is in advanced talks to sell its Indian assets to an unspecified buyer.

Sears and Kmart are expanding free store pickup to more than 2,000 locations. The online/in-store collaboration will allow customers to pick up sears.com or kmart.com orders at any Sears or Kmart store and orders will be ready in five minutes or less.