Sales & Marketing

Anheuser-Busch has teamed up with Gratafy to launch a mobile gifting pilot on Facebook designed to enable real-time connections between the beer brand and its customers.

A series of Anheuser-Busch campaigns will target consumers nationwide in their Facebook News Feeds, giving them the ability to send friends a Budweiser (budweiser.com/budsforbuds) or Bud Light (budlight.com/birthday) in select cities, beginning with Chicago and Denver.

Atlanta - Overall retail spending growth in August 2014 was the strongest in more than a year. According to the First Data SpendTrend report, retail dollar volume growth reached 2.8% in August (compared to 2.6% in July), as back-to-school shopping propelled spending growth in several retail categories. (SpendTrend tracks same-store point-of-sale data by credit, signature debit, PIN debit, EBT, closed-loop prepaid cards and checks from nearly 4 million merchants locations serviced by First Data in the United States.)

New York -- Wal-Mart Stores has no plans to join Apple’s newly-announced mobile payments system, Apple Pay, which is due to launch in October.

Wal-Mart is supporting a retailer-owned mobile technology group, the Merchant Customer Exchange, which is launching its own mobile wallet application. The application, called CurrentC, is now in pilot and is expected to be rolled out nationwide in 2015, according to The Washington Post.  Best Buy is also among the retailers supporting CurrentC.
   

Ulta Beauty reported a 22.2% boost in second-quarter new sales and drove its best comps since the secondquarter 2012 thanks in large part to successful new products and brands as well as growth in e-commerce. Meanwhile, the beauty retailer continues to forge ahead on its new strategic plan.

Walmart released its top toy list for 2014 the same day Toys “R” Us unveiled holiday strategies at its flagship store in New York.

Indianapolis — JLL’s Retail Group has been retained to lease and manage Washington Square Mall in Indianapolis. The property’s tenant mix includes more than 80 national, regional and local retailers, and is anchored by Sears, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Target and Burlington Coat Factory.

The nearly one-million-square-foot regional shopping mall was built in 1974 and underwent a comprehensive renovation in 1999. Regional manager Rick Vita is leading the JLL team on this assignment.

North Plainfield, N.J. — David Reiner has joined retail real estate services firm Levin Management as VP of leasing. Most recently, Reiner served as director of real estate for Body Central Stores Inc.

During the past 25 years, he has also has held executive- and management-level retail leasing positions with property owners such as Urban Retail Properties, Colonial Properties Trust, and Simon Property Group.
 

Corte Madera, Calif. – Restoration Hardware Holdings Inc. beat consensus analyst estimates by swinging from a net loss to profit in the second quarter of fiscal 2014, but had smaller-than-expected sales growth.

The upscale home furnishings retailer reported net income of $27.3 million, compared to net loss of $17.8 million during the same period a year earlier.