Corporate Governance

With plans to more than double its 200,000 global workforce in the foreseeable future, Starbucks is making a push to hire veterans and active duty spouses, much like other retailers like Walmart and Home Depot.

In addition, a store in Lakewood, Wash., and a store in San Antonio, Texas, will begin sharing a portion of each transaction with nonprofit programs Operation GoodJobs and Vested in Vets as part of a commitment to establish five such stores in joint base communities around the United States.

San Jose, Calif. — Togo’s Eateries has announced signed development agreements with new and existing franchisees to open nine new restaurants in markets across California. The company will open two restaurants in downtown Los Angeles, two in midtown and downtown Sacramento, and single units in San Jose, Santa Cruz, Riverbank, El Centro and Petaluma.

JetPay Payment Services has appointed Jeffry A. Beene as the company’s SVP for risk management. Beene has more than 20 years of experience within the merchant acquiring industry.

JetPay Payment Services is an end-to-end payments processing provider. Along with its sister company, JetPay Payroll Services, the company now offers a complete line of vertically integrated financial services to businesses across the country, including payment processing, payroll and tax filing, human resource management and prepaid card services.

Vancouver -- Loft, a division of Ann Inc., will open its first Canadian West Coast location, at The Village at Park Royal, in Vancouver, on Nov. 15.

Since its arrival in Canada last year, Loft has opened five locations across Ontario and introduced international shipping.    

Montreal -- Canadian footwear retailer Groupe Yellow has selected the Epicor Retail Software as a Service (SaaS) solution to support the organization’s retail operations. Yellow has also signed on as the first SaaS customer to deploy Epicor Retail Sourcing and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) as a hosted solution.

Lands’ End will offer free shipping to all customers on purchases more than $50 as part of its standard customer offerings. U.S. customers will also have the option to upgrade to two-day UPS shipping for $5.

Deerfield, Ill. -- Walgreens had October sales of $6.37 billion, an increase of 6.1% from $6 billion for the same month in fiscal 2013. Same-store sales improved 5.8%.

Calendar day shifts negatively impacted total comparable sales by 0.3%age point, while generic drug introductions in the last 12 months negatively impacted total comparable sales by 0.7%age point. Walgreens opened 14 stores during October, including four relocations, and closed two.

LeapFrog Enterprises is rolling into the holiday with its strongest product lineup ever but concerns about consumer spending have the leading educational entertainment company tempering its view of fourth quarter sales.