Big Lots Stores, Inc.

Niles, Ohio – Discount apparel retailer Gabriel Brothers opens a new store at the Eastwood Mall Complex in early November. The new 64,900-sq.-ft. store will open in the McKinley Centre section of the complex, near PetSmart and Big Lots.

The Eastwood Mall Complex offers more than 200 department stores, specialty shops, restaurants and entertainment options. The Eastwood Mall Complex is owned and managed in association with Cafaro-affiliated companies, based in Youngstown, Ohio.

Improved merchandising strategies and marketing execution at Big Lots has president and CEO David Campisi feeling good about prospects for a company that continues to distance itself from its closeout roots.

Despite an increase of 1% in comparable store sales, Dillard’s CEO William T. Dillard II expressed disappointment in the company’s bottom line performance.

The company’s net sales for the 13 weeks ended Aug. 2 were $1.475 billion, compared to net sales of $1.480 billion for the 13 weeks ended Aug. 3, 2013. Net sales include the operations of the company’s construction business, CDI Contractors.

Columbus, Ohio – Big Lots Inc. is expanding its food selections in all of its 1,491 stores across the country. The department will feature more brand name products, improved product arrangement and well-designed signage to make shopping easier.

Seattle -- Starbucks that its consolidated net revenue growth accelerated 11% in the third quarter, to $4.2 billion. Consolidated operating income increased 25%, to $769 million.

The coffee giant raised the number of net new stores it expects to open in its Americas region from 600 to 650.

Global same-store sales increased 6%, marking the 18th consecutive quarter of global comp growth of 5% or greater. Same-store sales in the United States rose 7%.  

Cleveland – Higher pretax income and gross profit helped push net income at The Sherwin-Williams Company up 13% in the second quarter of fiscal 2014 to $291 million, from $257 million in the year-ago period.

Net sales rose 12% to $3.04 billion from $2.7 billion, primarily due to higher paint sales volume in the paint stores group and acquisitions.

David Campisi joined Big Lots a little more than a year ago as president and CEO and with sales and profits gathering momentum the nation’s leading off-price retailer has decided to begin paying a hefty dividend.

The operator of roughly 1,500 stores nationwide said it would begin paying a quarterly dividend of 17 cents a share as part of a more balanced approach to returning cash to shareholders and as a reflection of confidence in the company’s strategy and favorable long-term prospects.

Irvine, Calif. — Sage North America is releasing the new Sage Exchange Payment Management System to consolidate all of retail small-to-mid-sized business (SMB) payment activity onto one platform. SMBs can use Sage Exchange to monitor and manage the payments from all their sales environments: on the web, over the phone, through mobile devices, or at their storefront, on a 24/7 basis.