Sales & Marketing

The Kroger Co. is looking to hire 14,000 associates. The supermarket operator is holding a nationwide hiring event on Saturday, May 14, to fill open jobs across all its store brands. Interested candidates can also apply online at jobs.kroger.com. The openings are for part-time and full-time associates.

Ollie’s Bargain Outlet Holdings has entered the Sunshine State, opening a store in Orlando, Florida. The new location represents the extreme discounter’s 208th store and 18th state of operation. In keeping with the company’s strategy of expanding into contiguous states and new markets, Ollie’s plans to open a total of six to nine stores in the state of Florida this year and 28-32 new stores overall across the eastern half of the United States in 2016.

Schimenti Construction has begun work on Dick's Sporting Goods' store in Melville, New York, managing an open store remodel/tenant fit-out of the approximately 95,000-sq.-ft. space.

Many of the roughly 100,000 average daily visitors to the Mall of America arrive with an expectation of being able to access the Internet via a fast and free Wi-Fi network. Living up to that expectation required the expansive property to rely on several key partners. When Mall of America decided it was time to offer free Wi-Fi for its 40 million annual guests, it turned to Garland, Texas-based AmpThink to design, build and manage the high density wireless network running on Cisco hardware throughout the 5.6 million square foot mall.

While some retailers focus on the promise of the Store of Tomorrow, others are using leading-edge technologies to deliver the Store of Today — offering unparalleled customer experience that drives satisfaction, traffic, frequency of visits, and sales. How do they do it?

The likes of Lowe’s, Home Depot, and Best Buy have a new competitor to deal with—J.C. Penny. "The department store retailer on Monday announced a major expansion into home appliances, as well as two new tests in the home area, one involving Ashley Furniture, and the other national carpet and flooring company Empire Today.

Traditional supermarket retailers are facing competition on all fronts, from online pure players, discount grocery chains and from the extreme-value general merchandise retailers (dollar stores). While dollar stores remain a niche segment, consumables are becoming a more important part of the sector, according to a report on forbes.com.

Canadian footwear and accessory retailer The Aldo Group is not ignoring the back end when it comes to supporting seamless commerce. Aldo is deploying the CGS BlueCherry B2B e-commerce solution to enable its buyers to select assortments and receive confirmed orders virtually anywhere and anytime. With more than 2,500 points of sale and nearly 2,000 retail stores across the globe, Aldo is always trying to better engage its large network of wholesale and franchisee retail buyers.