Sales & Marketing

Walgreens Boots Alliance on Tuesday announced an increase of 13.6% in net sales to $30.2 billion for the second quarter ended Feb. 29, 2016, compared with the same quarter a year ago, largely due to the full consolidation of Alliance Boots for the entire quarter this year. Foreign currency translation adversely impacted sales by approximately $750 million or 2.4%.

Apparently shifts in weather patterns have thrown yet another curve ball to the traditional retail industry.

Lowe’s Companies Inc. is expanding its use of augmented and virtual reality to help customers truly “visualize” home improvement projects.

Whirlpool Corp. will bring its Maytag brand of appliances to 600 Best Buy stores this month rounding out what was already an extensive offering.

Maytag brand products will hit the sales floor at 600 Best Buy stores in mid-April and also be sold online, the retailer said. The move expands Whirlpool’s assort at Best Buy which already includes the leading appliance manufacturer’s Whirlpool, KitchenAid and Amana brands. Best Buy also offer appliances from LG, Samsung, Frigidaire, Bosch and Electrolux.

When it comes to marketing spending, Deckers Brands is doing more with less.

The Goleta, California-based vertical apparel retailer is performing advanced predictive analytics on the performance of different marketing activities for its North American direct-to-consumer Ugg specialty footwear business. This includes an e-commerce site, as well as 45 stores.

Although Amazon.com recently more than tripled the number of items available via its Amazon Dash buttons and cited some impressive growth statistics, actual use may be relatively low.

According to daily analysis of a panel of more than 4 million online shoppers from digital commerce research firm Slice Intelligence, fewer than 50% of people who had bought a Dash button before Amazon expanded the assortment on March 31 had ever actually made an order using one.

Staples is looking to connect with a key customer segment and improve the productivity of its selling space with a new pilot program involving shared workspace provider Workbar.

For only the third time in three years, Kroger has created a new installment of its Savor World Flavor globally themed promotional effort.