Sales & Marketing

Birmingham, Ala. -- Books-A-Million appointed James Phelps as VP e-commerce. For nearly 15 years, Phelps has been a leader in e-commerce, serving with retailers including HSN, Kohl’s Department Stores, and Brookstone.

With all the attention being paid to mobile commerce, wearable technology and other cutting-edge developments in the world of retail IT, the in-store POS terminal is sometimes taken for granted.

Keurig Green Mountain has appointed José Octavio Reyes Lagunes, retired vice chairman of The Coca-Cola Export Corporation, to its board of directors.

New York - L.L. Bean provided a level of customer service across all channels in July that was among the best in the U.S. For the third month in 2014, L.L. Bean has topped the overall customer service rankings in Stella Benchmarks.

Montreal - GDecide has created a free private social network for decision making, aimed at Millennial consumers. The network offers a platform that collates and tallies responses to questions and only distributes questions to the select circle of network connections users wishes to poll, protecting the privacy of its users.

A friend of mine is a devoted customer of a bath and body products shop in her local suburban town. There is nothing exclusive about the merchandise — most of the products can be bought online or at a number of other stores, often for a slightly lower price. My friend doesn’t care about any of that.

“They know me there by name, and they know what I like,” she told me. “They even email when new products come in that they think I would like. So what if it’s a little more expensive?

Oak Brook, Ill. – As official NFL restaurant sponsor, McDonald's is launching the national McDonald's Tailgate Photo Sweepstakes. McDonald's customers can use QR codes on McDonald's medium beverages with NFL-themed packaging to access exclusive online NFL Now video content.

Customers can also use QR codes on McDonald's medium fries to access the McDonald's Pick The Play Sweepstakes and enter for the chance to win NFL-related prizes – including a trip for two to Super Bowl XLIX in Arizona.

Chile is the top destination for emerging market retail expansion, followed by China, where retail sales totaled a whopping $3.7 trillion in 2013, according to the 2014 A.T. Kearney Global Retail Development Index.

With Uruguay, Brazil, Peru, Panama, Colombia, Costa Rica and Mexico also in the index of top emerging economies ready for retail expansion, Latin America continues to show strength as a regional retail growth market.