Retail

Imagine you are at in a major department store’s corporate headquarters as your team prepares numbers for the upcoming holiday season. The frenetic pace of retail holiday hiring can frazzle even the most experienced manager, and diligently checking every box in the employee onboarding process can seem laughably optimistic in the rush to find, hire and get as many employees as possible going in a matter of days.

Alpharetta, Ga. – McAlister’s Deli has named Jeff Sturgis as chief development officer. Sturgis has more than 17 years of experience in the franchise industry, including working as a consultant as well as senior management and development positions with Fantastic Sams Hair Salons and Focus Brands.

Sturgis will lead development functions including franchise sales, real estate, store design and construction.

Traditionally, retailers relied on advertising and direct response to succeed. To make more money, retailers simply let more people know about their stores and products.

Washington, D.C. -- Nearly 158 million consumers will participate in Halloween activities this year, slightly less than the historic high of 170 million people last year. New figures from the National Retail Federation (NRF) indicate the average consumer will spend $75.03 on Halloween this year, down 6% from $79.82 last year.

However, average overall spending on Halloween has increased 54.7% since 2005, with total spending estimated to reach $6.9 billion in 2013. Other NRF figures include:

Boston — The Wilder Companies has been awarded five new leasing and management contracts for nearly 900,000 sq. ft. in five shopping centers on the north and south shores of Boston.

The Crossing at Walkers Brook in Reading, Mass., is a 480,000-sq.-ft. center featuring Jordan’s Furniture, an IMAX Theatre and The Home Depot. An 80,000-sq.-ft. pedestrian-friendly lifestyle portion of the center features Staples, Golfsmith, the Paper Store, Macaroni Grill, Chili’s, and Starbucks.

East Moriches, N.Y. -- Solutions Management, a leading national retail and corporate maintenance company, announced the appointment of Michael DiTaranto as its new senior operations manager.

Fort Worth, Texas -- Pier 1 Imports has named Eric Hunter as executive VP of marketing, responsible for the company’s brand image and integrated marketing efforts. He most recently served as senior VP of marketing and acting chief marketing officer for J.C. Penney Co., where he led strategy, research, creative, media, customer relationship management and digital direction for the JCP enterprise brand and all JCP-owned brands.

New York -- Shaky consumer confidence and increased efficiencies among retailers may put a damper on retailers’ holiday hiring plans, according to global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

In its annual holiday hiring forecast, Challenger estimated that seasonal job gains will not see a significant decline from last year’s robust numbers, but they are likely to at best match the level of hiring that occurred in October, November, and December 2012.