Sales & Marketing

Target on Tuesday announced the hire of Mark Tritton as EVP and chief merchandising officer. In this role, Tritton will oversee enterprise buying, product design and development, sourcing, visual merchandising strategy and merchandising transformation and operations for the retailer.

The long-awaited changes to federal overtime rule will be unveiled later today at an event in Columbus, Ohio, headlined by Vice President Joe Biden, Labor Secretary Thomas Perez and Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown (D). The most notable change is a nearly doubling of the current salary threshold from its current $23,360 to $47,476 under which virtually all workers will be eligible for time and a half pay. The dramatic change would make nearly five million currently exempt employees nationwide eligible and will go into effect Dec. 1.

Comp-store sales for the quarter were up 6.5% - with comps for the U.S. stores up 7.4%.   Net earnings for the three months ended May 1 were $1.8 billion, up 14.2% compared with net earnings of $1.6 billion in the same quarter last year.  

In a quarter of strong home improvement demand, Mooresville, North Carolina-based Lowe’s reported net earnings of $884 million for the quarter ended April 29, a 31.4% increase over the same quarter lat year. Sales for the quarter increased 7.8% to $15.2 billion. Comp-store sales increased 7.3% overall, and increased 7.5% for the U.S. business.

Tops Friendly Markets, a Williamsville, New York-based supermarket chain with more than 170 stores in New York, Pennsylvania and Vermont, is making sure the last step in the path to purchase goes smoothly.

Tops is leveraging the Toshiba SurePOS ACE POS application to provide store shoppers with a convenient and integrated customer experience. During a nine-month chainwide rollout, the retailer replaced 20-plus-year-old POS terminals with the new Toshiba solution.

A major omnichannel advancement is coming soon to Petco’s more than 1,400 stores as the retailer works with Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions on a wide ranging initiative to integrate physical and digital operations.

Petco selected Toshiba’s omnichannel solution branded as TCxGravity to create a seamless commerce offering and improve the overall shopper experience, according to the companies.

The newest concept in beauty retail is called The Glossary and it is arriving on more college campuses courtesy of Barnes & Noble College.

The Glossary concept was piloted at the Barnes & Noble Emory University and Southern Methodist University bookstores and more recently expanded to the campuses of Tulane University and the College of William & Mary. The newest location set to open in August will be on the campus of the University of California at Riverside.

The demise of regional grocer Haggen has been a boon to Smart & Final which grew its store count by more than 10% after acquiring former Haggen locations.

Last December, Smart & Final acquired 33 Haggen lease locations and the company recently announced that it had opened all those locations under its Smart & Final Extra! banner.