Mass Merchant

Bentonville, Ark. – Wal-Mart Stores said Mike Duke will retire as president and CEO, effective Feb. 1, 2014, and will be replaced by veteran company executive Doug McMillon. McMillon, 47, president and CEO of Walmart International, was also named to Wal-Mart’s board, effective immediately.

New York – More than half of consumers plan to shop on Black Friday this year, although the number has decreased since last year. According to the Deloitte Pre-Thanksgiving Survey, 53% of 1,000 consumers polled will shop on Black Friday, compared to 63% in 2012.

Younger consumers are more likely to shop Black Friday, with 68% of weekend shoppers age 18-29 planning to shop that day and 44% of Black Friday shoppers in this age group planning to hit the stores between midnight and 5 a.m., compared to 30% of those 30 and older.

Green Bay, Wis. -- Shopko on Monday named Peter McMahon, most recently COO of Loblaws, as its new CEO. Loblaws is Canada’s largest food retailer with over $30 billion in sales.

At Loblaws, McMahon was responsible for supply chain, IT, HR, labor relations, merchandising, store operations and loss prevention functions. Prior to Loblaws, McMahon held various senior level positions with some of the world’s largest retailers, including Wal-Mart in Germany and Japan and Tesco in central Europe.
 

Framingham, Mass. -- TJX Cos. is launching its first-ever holiday gift hotline for its TJ Maxx and Marshall stores.

The hotline will be available to shoppers from Tuesday, Dec. 3 through Friday, Dec. 6, and will be staffed by nationally renowned style and gifting experts.

The hotline will be staffed from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The buzzwords abound — integrated retail, e-commerce — and consumers are becoming increasingly comfortable using these words. No matter what you call it, they are looking for and expecting the same thing: a seamless online to in-store or in-store to online experience.  

Austin, Texas -- Nearly nine-in-10 (86%) working consumers plan to spend at least some time shopping or browsing online for gifts during work hours this Cyber Monday. A new RetailMeNot retail trends report also shows that 25% of working Americans plan to actually spend four hours or more shopping online for gifts during work hours that day.

Plano, Texas – J.C. Penney will no longer be included on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.  

Dow Jones Indices, which manages the S&P 500 as well as many other financial indices, said on Nov. 22 that Allegion, an Ireland-based provider of mechanical and electronic security products, will replace Penney on the S&P 500. Penney will join the S&P MidCap 400. The change will become effective after the stock market closes on Nov. 29.

Chicago -- Upward growth in large-scale, new construction projects as well as an uptick in fine dining and hospitality construction, is predicted for 2014, according to Englewood Construction’s Commercial Construction Forecast 2014.