Retail

Kroger has purchased the assets of You Technology Brand Services, a Silicon Valley-based platform of digital coupons and promotions.

Philadelphia – Urban Outfitters reported substantial gains in net sales for the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2014. Total company sales in the quarter increased 6% to $906 million, less than Wall Street expected, from $856.8 million in the year-ago period.

Same-store retail segment net sales, which include the direct-to-consumer channel, increased 1%. Same-store retail segment net sales increased 20% at Free People and 10% at Anthropologie and decreased 9% at Urban Outfitters. Wholesale segment net sales rose 24%.

Urban Outfitters reported substantial gains in net sales for the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2014, driven primarily by the company’s Anthropologie and Free People brands.

Total company sales in the quarter increased 6% to $906 million from $856.8 million in the year-ago period — less than Wall Street expected.

Washington, D.C. – The National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force, a combined effort of the FBI, Secret Service, intelligence agencies, and the Department of Homeland Security, has released a report stating there is no evidence that recent data breaches in the computer networks of U.S., retailers are a deliberate attack on the U.S., economy.

Residents of the Washington, D.C., metro area can now have products ordered from supermarket operator Harris Teeter delivered within the hour following Instacart’s entry into the market.

Instacart’s network of personal shoppers began delivering items ordered from Harris Teeter on Feb. 11. The service provider expects to add other retailers in the coming weeks which would allow shoppers to combine items from multiple stores in a single order and have them delivered in as little as one hour.

Washington, D.C. -- Import volume at the nation’s major retail container ports is expected to drop 8.4% in February from the same time last year as the shipping cycle reaches its slowest month of the year, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.

Toward the end of January, the Wall Street Journal reported that Wal-Mart has given itself two years to match the online service and delivery speed of Amazon.com.

In an interview at the World Economic forum in Davos, Switzerland, Neil Ashe, Wal-Mart’s global e-commerce CEO told Journal reporter Dennis Berman was building new warehouses across the country dedicated to handling online orders.

Westlake Village, Calif. - Guitar Center has selected 360pi to increase their awareness of the competitive marketplace and to utilize the actionable insights gained from the 360pi intelligence to increase market competitiveness. Guitar Center had been using another provider, but selected 360pi’s 360price and 360assortment products to deliver near real-time insights into their competitive set.