Sales & Marketing

Fort Worth, Texas -- RadioShack's Fix It Here same-day mobile repair service is now available in 26 stores in the Chicago area. Services include repairs for cracked screens, broken buttons and damaged charging ports.  

By Les Berglass    The appointments of new chief executives of major brands always cause a stir, but Gap Inc.’s recent announcement that Art Peck would succeed Glenn Murphy hit Wall Street like a truck. Why? Because the investment community  wanted a more predictable, standing CEO—it likes stability. But the truth is, this is a positive and revolutionary change.   

Amazon is “piloting” holiday pop-up stores this holiday season, with two confirmed locations in San Francisco and Sacramento, along with what may or may not be a permanent space in Manhattan. While theoretically Amazon is going to let the pilots run their course, analyze the results, and then possibly move forward with a rollout of more permanent brick-and-mortar stores, most observers expect the pilot is the first step in an already determined strategy to build a physical presence.  

Chicago -- More than 80% of shoppers visit three or more channels to carry out CPG shopping, according to IRI’s new Times & Trend report, “Channel Migration: The Road to Growth Has Many Lanes”.   

Fashion footwear brand Steve Madden cited a curious lack of significant fashion trends when it lowered its full year financial outlook after reporting a third quarter sales decline.

The company, which is known to be a trend-setting in the footwear world, said sales for the period ended Sept. 30 declined 0.7% to $392 million and indicated full year sales were likely to increase 1% to 2%.

New York -- Incidents of smartphone “showrooming”—seeing a product in a store, then buying it online from another retailer using a smartphone—dropped from 37% in the United States last year to 28% in 2014. But “webrooming,” in which consumers buy in a store after researching a purchase online using a smartphone, was reported by an even higher proportion of respondents, 41%.  Those are among the findings of GfK’s 2014 FutureBuy global study of shopping habits and preferences.  

Las Vegas -- Today’s convenience stores face growing pressure to evolve amid the ramped-up expectations of global consumers, according to remarks made by Joseph Bona, president of branded environments at brand agency and retail design consultancy CBX, and Dan Munford, managing firector of U.K.-based Insight, convenience and petroleum retail strategy specialists, at the National Association of Convenience Stores’ annual convention in Las Vegas.  

Former Talbots and Bloomingdales executive Lisa Gavales was named president and CEO of personalized gift retailer Things Remembered where she plans to further evolve the retailer’s omnichannel offering.

Things Remembered operates 600 stores nationwide that are integrated with its Web site to allow for online ordering and same day pick up. Gavales will join the company November 10 to fill the position being vacated by Michael Anthony. He is relinquishing the CEO title after eight years but will remain as chairman of the board.