Corporate Governance

Littleton, Mass. - Dover Saddlery Retail Inc. plans to open the first Dover Saddlery tack store in Ohio in summer 2014. The store will be located in Cincinnati and offer in-store services including a saddle demo program and custom boot measuring.

Sales at four of Newell Rubbermaid’s five operating divisions declined during the company’s first quarter, but overall profitability suffered as a result of baby products recall and expenses related to a transformation strategy.

Pittsburgh - GNC Holdings Inc. is launching a month-long fundraising and awareness campaign for Run With Us at more than 5,000 GNC stores and online at GNC.com. Run With Us is a curriculum-based health-=and-wellness program that brings elite track & field athletes and aspiring Olympians into the classroom to demonstrate how exercise and nutrition go hand-in-hand with goal setting and self-esteem.

There is no substitute for a strong brand — whatever the sales channel. That’s the basic underlying premise of Interbrand’s annual “Best Retail Brands” report, which ranks the top 50 North American and international retailers by brand value. It’s a premise worth keeping in mind amid all the online versus offline talk. As Interbrand global CEO Jez Frampton puts it: “In the end, it is the brand, not the footprint, that will endure.”

nGage Labs, a leading provider of personalized mobile engagement solutions, has named Kyle Hollaway as chief technology officer.

As CTO, Hollaway will lead the nGage Labs Analytics Innovation team in developing real-time personalization analytics that differentiates the company's mobile customer engagement solutions. He leads an entire team of architects, analysts, modelers, and developers in continuing to create deeper levels of individual customer insights and actionable intelligence.

An expected shift in Easter-related product shipments affected Kraft Foods Group in the first quarter of 2014.

"We continued to make steady progress during the first quarter of this year," said CEO Tony Vernon, who remained positive. "We still have more work to do, but we're confident that our focus on brand renovation, marketing excellence and total cost management will drive the profitable growth that both we and our shareholders expect."

Camp Hill, Pa. – Total drugstore sales at Rite Aid grew 4.9% to $1.99 billion in April 2014 from $1.9 billion the same month in the previous year. Same-stores sales for the month increased 5%.

Rite Aid cited the shift in Easter from March in 2013 to April in 2014 as helping to boost same-store front-end sales.

Dick’s Sporting Goods monitors social commentary to boost customer satisfaction

If you really want to know what people think about you, you need to find out what they say behind your back. Historically this has been a tricky proposition, but the advent of social media provides an open forum where companies as well as individuals can check to see what is being said, and whether the commentary is good or bad.