Retail

New York — Sam’s Club will open two new clubs on Oct. 3. One is located in Romeoville, Ill. Romeoville Mayor John Noak, Chicago Bears cornerback Tim Jennings and former Bears tight end Desmond Clark, will attend the grand opening.

The second new Sam’s Club is located in Edmond, Okla. Edmond Mayor Charles Lamb, Oklahoma quarterback Jason White and former Sooner running back Billy Sims will attend the grand opening.

Sister publication Drug Store News has learned that Mary Kelly has been appointed EVP and chief merchandising officer at Rexall Pharma Plus.

Kelly, who has more than 26 years of experience leading business teams in Canada and the United States, joins the company after four years at Shoppers Drug Mart, most recently as EVP, merchandising and category management. Prior to that, Kelly served 17 years at Target in a variety of key leadership positions in merchandising and pharmacy, and at Revco Drug Stores and Eli Lilly before that. 

To remain in the same e-commerce class as its peers, Pennsauken, N.J.-based Becker’s School Supplies, Inc. redeveloped and relaunched its online retail site on the WebLinc e-commerce platform.

“We needed a significant upgrade of our Web presence,” explained Robert Bonczkiewicz, catalog manager at Becker’s. “Competitors in our space are top-notch and we needed to get up to speed.”

Los Angeles – The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf has experienced significant lift across key social metrics such as local Facebook fans and impressions using the MomentFeed location-based marketing platform.

New York -- Despite the availability of retail technology, price and product selection are still the largest factors influencing shopper decisions, according to an annual study by global IT services and consulting firm Cognizant. Fifty-five percent of shoppers will leave a store to look online or shop another store if they think a price seems too high, and 21% will ask for a price match.
 

New Balance is joining forces with the Army & Air Force Exchange Service to provide wounded service members with free athletic shoes through the Wounded Care program.

Since 2007, the Exchange and New Balance have provided complimentary footwear to service members who have been injured in action. More than 400 free pairs have been provided to Wounded Warriors this year alone.

Los Altos, Calif. -- Catalog Spree, the personal digital mall that lets consumers browse and shop their favorite brands, has teamed with Google to distribute interactive retail catalogs and lookbooks on the web through Lightbox Ads. These targeted ads will feature Catalog Spree's full-page catalogs and lookbooks, and will be distributed on the Google Display Network, which reaches more than 100 million American consumers.