Retail

Jacksonville, Fla. - Regency Centers, a national owner, operator and developer of 321 grocery-anchored retail centers, needed a secure, dedicated platform that would integrate Symantec LiveOffice, Cisco Unity Connection and eMailSignature with its email solution. The company selected Intermedia Private Cloud to integrate and scale its business applications, thus enabling growth.

Boutique retailer Francesca's efforts to improve same store sales achieved disappointing results in the first quarter.

The company said same-store sales declined 2% due to lower transaction count, although direct-to-consumer sales rose 19%.

Vancouver – Lululemon Athletica Inc. struck a pose of profitability in the first quarter of fiscal 2015. Net income more than doubled to $47.8 million from $19 million a year earlier, aided by the elimination of a tax expense.

Net revenue increased 10% to $423.5 million, from $384.6 million. A 27% hike in direct-to-consumer net revenue, which now represents 20% of total company revenue, helped drive the overall improvement. Same-store sales dropped 1%.

New York -- Bloomingdale’s chairman and CEO Tony Spring talked about one of the company’s top-selling products (frozen yogurt!) and much more on Tuesday at the Retail Marketing Society’s “Reinventing the Store” conference in New York.

Here are 10 take-away quotes from his presentation:

“Our Forty Carrots frozen yogurt is one of our best-selling items. We have customers who come into our store five times a week for it.”

The Men's Wearhouse has signed a 10-year agreement with Macy's, Inc. to operate men's tuxedo rental shops inside 300 Macy's stores.

No other terms of the agreement were disclosed.

Doug Ewert, Men's Wearhouse chief executive officer, said: "As the nation's leading provider of tuxedo rental products and services, we are very excited to team with Macy's for the next decade to provide their customers with exceptional tuxedo rental services inside of 300 Macy's stores across the country."

Los Angeles -- American Apparel announced it has appointed Brian McHale as senior VP and CIO, with responsibility for overseeing information technology and computer systems. In addition to providing critical support to American Apparel’s onsite hardware and software applications, McHale will also lead the development and expansion of the company’s retail digital capabilities alongside Thoryn Stephens, recently appointed chief digital officer.

San Francisco -- Volta Industries is launching a network of more than 100 free electric car charging stations across five cities. Participating retailers include Macy’s and Whole Foods.

Volta first began in Honolulu by offering free electric car charging services underwritten by local brands. Since then, Volta has deployed initial charging infrastructure in high-volume, retail locations in five major cities, including the San Francisco Bay area, the Los Angeles metropolitan area, San Diego, Phoenix, and Honolulu.

Food Lion is celebrating the anniversary of its hunger relief program by donating more than 1 million meals.

In year 1 of the Food Lion Feeds program, the grocer donated more than 62 million meals and is on target to meet its commitment to donate 500 million meals throughout its 10-state operating area by the end of 2020.