Sales & Marketing

A decrease in same-store sales and losses resulting from Destination Maternity’s continued efforts to close underperforming stores fueled a net sales decline in the fourth quarter — just two months after Anthony Romano came on board as CEO.

Net sales at Destination Maternity dropped 5% to $122 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014, from $128.3 million the same quarter a year earlier. Same-store sales, including Internet sales, declined 5%. Sales results were below previously released guidance.

By Jeremy Geiger, Retailigence

The headline is bold, but yes, 2014 is the year of hyperlocal mobile advertising, and there are three very important trends converging today to make this happen. The first is smartphone proliferation; according to eMarketer, smartphone users worldwide will total a record-breaking two billion in 2014. Now billions of people around the world have the devices needed to make hyperlocal ads possible.

Grapevine, Texas -- GameStop announced the first in a series of updates to its GameStop app on mobile devices, and a chance for users who download the new app to win 1,000,000 PowerUp Rewards points.

GoDaddy, a leading technology provider dedicated to small businesses, is ready to roll out its first online store to the public, after successful beta testing.

The company enlisted Spree Commerce, an open source e-commerce platform, in February to launch the online store in beta. More than 5,000 merchants have opened stores and sold millions of dollars of products and services, all over the world, according to the company.

The GoDaddy Online Store serves small businesses without the technical resources necessary to deploy an e-commerce storefront.

New York -- Amazon plans to open its first-ever physical store, across from the Empire State Building in mid-town Manhattan, the Wall Street Journal reported. It's been rumored for years that the online giant was looking to open brick-and-mortar locations.

Atlanta -- United Parcel Service Inc. said it will expand UPS My Choice and the UPS Access Point network, two of the company’s services that work together to provide online shoppers and global retailers with new personalized solutions to manage residential package deliveries.

UPS My Choice, the customizable online and mobile service where consumers choose delivery preferences and more, will now be available to consumers in 15 additional countries throughout North America and Europe. The service was introduced in the U.S. in 2011.

Texas and the Carolinas drove the strongest sales at Stein Mart in September, while California, Arizona and the Northeast performed lower than the chain.

The company reported total sales for the five-week period ended Oct. 4 of $119.4 million, a 6.5% increase over total sales of $112.2 million for the prior-year period. Comparable store sales increased 4.9%.

Year-to-date total sales increased 3.1% to $832.9 million from $807.8 million for the prior-year period. Comparable store sales increased 2.4%.

UPS plans to expand UPS My Choice and the UPS Access Point network, two services that, according to the company, work seamlessly together to manage residential package deliveries.
 
UPS My Choice, the customizable online and mobile service where consumers choose delivery preferences, will now be available to consumers in 15 additional countries throughout North America and Europe. UPS My Choice was first introduced in the US in 2011.