Sales & Marketing

A sizzling Ulta Beauty wowed the Street on Thursday, announcing aggressive store expansion at a time when many brick-and-mortar retailers are cutting back. It also upped its outlook.  

Omnichannel retailing continues to change customer shopping patterns, but “balance” spurs sales.   More specifically, consumers’ average single-trip spending increases nearly four times when engaged by both in-store staff and the brand’s website, according to a new report from InMoment.  

Anthropologie’ s experiential retailing concept takes center stage under its new store banner, Anthropologie & Co., with the first-ever location now open in Walnut Creek, Calif.   The 30,000-sq.-ft. store is a visual treat, and features fully decorated showrooms, filled to the brim with custom furniture.   

Weis Markets has appointed R. Gregory Zeh, Jr. as VP/CIO of the company.    Zeh will oversee Weis’ day-to-day information technology functions, working in support of marketing and merchandising, supply chain and in-store management retail applications.   

Not only is online shopping a way of life for many shoppers, more and more of them are doing it across borders.   Those are among the findings of the third annual Pitney Bowes Global Online Shopping Survey, in which nearly one-third of consumers reported they make domestic online purchases on a daily or weekly basis. While it's no surprise that consumers frequently make domestic online purchases (94%), more than two-thirds (66%) of these consumers have also made an online purchase from another country in the past year.

SPECS 2017, the “Retail Event for Store Innovation,” announced that three of the nation’s top financial experts will open the program at the 53rd annual SPECS conference, which will be held March 12-14 at the Gaylord Palms in Kissimmee (Orlando), Florida.  

With its recent acquisition of Jet.com, a commitment to growing its online grocery business with a convenient grocery pick-up option and an extensive investment against delivering a seamless digital shopping experience, Walmart is once again flipping the script on what it means to compete for America's shopping dollar.   The company's investment in grocery pick-up services represents the cover of that new script - and Walmart is expanding that service to 600 stores this year and 500 stores next year.  

Two senators have introduced legislation to change the Americans with Disabilities Act.      On Sept. 28, Senators Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Roger Wicker (R-MS) introduced a bill that contains a “notice and cure” provision that would create a temporary halt in ADA litigation for up to 120 days to allow property owners to correct identified barriers to access. (A similar bill was introduced in the House.)