Sales & Marketing

Pittsburgh – Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc. met Wall Street expectations with net income of $63.34 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2015, a 9% decrease from $69.99 million the same period a year earlier. The retailer also met the Street with consolidated net sales of $1.56 billion, a 9% increase from $1.34 billion.

However, same-store sales growth of 1% fell short of Wall Street predictions. Rising selling, general and administrative (SG&A) and pre-opening expenses dug into Dick’s profit.

Lackluster traffic at its Golf Galaxy stores led Dick’s Sporting Goods to report a lackluster profit in the first quarter.

Brooklyn, N.Y. – Etsy Inc., the online marketplace for handmade goods, has released its first-ever earnings report, which shows growth in both net loss and revenue. Net loss increased substantially to $36.6 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2015 from $500,000 the same quarter the prior year.

Bentonville, Ark. – Declining gas prices helped U.S. same-store sales at Wal-Mart Stores Inc., but the negative impact of foreign currency exchange and efforts to improve store experience and employee wages dampened total sales and operating profits.

Merrillville, Ind. – Buying club DirectBuy is launching its My Rewards loyalty program. The program allows DirectBuy members to earn My Rewards points by purchasing products from select brands who otherwise would not be able to offer merchandise through DirectBuy because of their minimum resale pricing (MRP) policies.

Durham, N.C. – Consumers are increasingly taking an omnichannel approach to their online shopping carts. According to the research presented in Bronto Software and Deamdware’s recent “Consumers Tell All” study, 40% of online shoppers leave items in a shopping cart to view later, on a different device, or in a brick-and-mortar shop.

Armonk, N.Y. – IBM Inc. is making new investments in Sellpoints and WayBlazer to advance online shopping and travel apps powered by Watson. The investments are part of IBM's $100 million commitment to drive new innovations and business solutions that build on Watson.

Sports Authority wants to make purchase protection "SIMPLR" for its customers with a new partnership with Asurion Retail Solutions' SIMPLR brand.