Retail

Indianapolis – Hhgregg opened a new store in Huntsville, Ala., on Oct. 10. The new store replaces a previous location at a different address.

"We are excited to introduce a new, modern store to our customers in Huntsville," said Jeff Pearson, senior VP of marketing for Hhgregg. "We hope that residents will take advantage of special sale pricing on a wide variety of appliances, electronics, furniture and much more."

Stein Mart experienced strong sales in linens, ladies' boutique, gifts, ladies' career sportswear and women's in September, which bolstered the company’s total sales for the month.

Total sales were $112.20 million, an increase of 7.3% compared to September 2012. Comparable store sales increased 5% compared to last September’s increase of 2.4%.

Atlanta - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has recognized The Home Depot with a 2013 WaterSense Retail Partner of the Year award. The Home Depot was honored during the WaterSmart Innovations Conference for its commitment to water efficiency and outstanding efforts to support the WaterSense program during 2012.

Cosmetics retailer Lush is turning to Storage Made Easy’s Enterprise File Share and Sync solution with data stored on OpenStack Swift to help improve its global reach.


Lush ran an initial two month trial with 50 people prior to moving forward with the Storage Made Easy solution. They subsequently rolled out the solution in stages, by department, first to 150 people and then on to 300 people, and then again on to 500 people.

“Lush expects to reach more than 1,000 users by the time the solution is fully rolled out," said Jim Liddle, Storage Made Easy CEO.

Dallas – SAP previewed a mobile app called Snap at its SAP Retail Forum held in Dallas Oct. 7-9. Designed for both tablets and smartphones, Snap is aimed at consumers who purchase items that require DIY assembly.

Revlon’s wholly owned operating subsidiary, Revlon Consumer Products, completed its previously disclosed acquisition of the Colomer Group, including the Revlon Professional business, for a cash purchase price of $665 million.

San Bruno, Calif. -- Over 35% of respondents received no formal training, and 28% were asked to read a manual or a handbook, according to a recent study of retail store associates by Qumu, a provider of secure multimedia content management and delivery solutions. The survey also revealed that retail employees are looking for improved executive communication to provide them with a greater understanding of company strategy (57%), more connectedness to the company community (47%), and understanding of activity in other stores (46%).

Bi-Lo and Winn-Dixie parent Bi-Lo Holdings plans to retire the Sweetbay and Reid’s banners. The company will begin converting all Sweetbay stores to the Winn-Dixie name and Reid's stores to Bi-Lo in 2014, and confirmed the Harveys banner would remain intact.

The grocery retailer acquired all three banners from Brussels, Belgium-based Delhaize Group last May.