Sales & Marketing

General Mills has partnered  with GRAMMY Award-winning group Camila for the company's 2014-2015 Musica y Sabor campaign focused on connecting with customers in the Hispanic markets.

West Chester, Penn. –- QVC will introduce a new in-app mobile feature in the coming weeks that allows customers to make purchases with a touch of their finger. Using Apple's fingerprint sensor technology, Touch ID, the QVC for iPhone app now gives customers the option to log in to their QVC accounts on all iOS 8-enabled iPhone 5S, 6 and 6+ mobile devices using only their fingertip to authenticate their identity.   

Bentonville, Ark. –- Wal-Mart is reportedly testing a price-matching program it may use for the upcoming holiday season. According to the Wall Street Journal, Wal-Mart is currently piloting price-matching with local competitors in brick-and-mortar stores but may expand the program nationally and include online competitors like Amazon.com.  

Seattle –- Starbucks Corp. topped off a generally successful fourth quarter of fiscal 2014 by swinging to net income of $587.9 million from net loss of $1.23 billion the fourth quarter of the prior fiscal year. The removal of a one-time arbitration charge of $2.8 billion helped bring Starbucks into the black.  

New York –- CurrentC, a mobile payment service still in pilot mode from a group of retailers known as the Merchant Consumer Exchange (MCX), has reportedly been hit by hackers. According to CNN, MCX has sent a warning to participants in the CurrentC pilot that criminals obtained access to the email addresses of all consumers who have signed up for the service.  

Bridgestone Americas announced that TJ Higgins has been named president of the consumer U.S. and Canada divisions for the company's tire operations, effective Nov. 3. Higgins succeeds Gordon Knapp, who became COO of Bridgestone Americas in March. 

Higgins brings more than 20 years of consumer products marketing and strategic business experience to Bridgestone. He most recently served as the North America regional president for Pfizer Consumer Healthcare and also held leadership roles at Merck and Vlasic throughout his career. 

Fort Lauderdale, Fla. -- Nicole Messer has joined the retail group of Stiles Realty as senior retail associate. In this role, Messer will focus primarily on developing third-party retail leasing and investment sales business in the Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Miami markets.  

On the heels of moderating expectations for its third quarter performance, Kohl’s announced plans to improve results during the holidays, including an around the clock opening schedule beginning at 6 p.m. Thanksgiving Day.

Kohl’s will open its doors at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day and remain open through midnight Friday, Nov. 28. The retailer will also offer a variety of omnichannel holiday services, including a daily “Today’s Deals” section on Kohls.com.