Mass Merchant

CBL & Associates has named Curt Hammontree VP of development. In nearly 18 years with the company, he has worked on 18 mall and outlet developments, the most recent being an outlet project in Laredo, Texas.   “Curt has been a valuable contributor to CBL’s successful development,” said president and CEO Stephen Lebovitz. “We are pleased to be able to recognize his many achievements with this promotion.”  

Caleres has made two executive appointment in its Famous Footwear division.   The company named Karlyn Mattson as chief merchandising officer, leading Famous Footwear’s buying, merchandising, planning, allocation and analytic functions.     Mattson joins Caleres from a 25-year career at Target Corp., where she was most recently VP merchandise manager of shoes, accessories and intimate Apparel for retail and online. She held leadership positions at May Company and Macy’s.  

Despite an earlier report to the contrary, Walmart is not combining its online and store buying functions.   Reuters had reported that the discounter was combining its online and store buying operations as it moves to make itself more competitive with Amazon. The report was picked up by numerous media outlets.   Based on information from Walmart, however, the chain is not merging the stores and walmart.com buying teams. The two will continue to operate as two separate teams.  

A cloud computing/e-commerce giant heads up Fast Company’s annual ranking of the 10 most innovative companies in retail. Amazon not only topped the retail sector category, it also came in number one in the overall World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies listing. (Rounding out the top five: Google, Uber, Apple and Snap.)

The ever-expanding Dollar General has entered its 44th state.   The discounter opened a store in Hankinson, North Dakota. The company plans to open six additional locations in the state through spring 2017.   

The Trump brand at retail has taken another hit.    Sears and Kmart this week removed 31 Trump Home items from their e-commerce sites, Reuters reported, to focus on more profitable products. Neither Sears nor Kmart carried the products in their brick-and-mortar stores.  

Another corporate ranking, another first place finish by Amazon.   The online giant came out on top in Harris Poll’s annual corporate reputation rankings report. The poll measures the reputations of the 100 most visible companies in the United States as perceived by the general public.        

J.Jill Group is looking at a return to the public markets. The apparel retailer, which is owned by private-equity firm TowerBrook Capital Partners LP, announced that it has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission relating to a proposed initial public offering of its common stock. TowerBrook acquired J.Jill from Arcapita and Golden Gate Capital in 2015. The chain was previously owned by The Talbots.