Sales & Marketing

Supervalu welcomed nearly 4,000 independent grocery retailers to St. Paul, Minn., this week for the grocery distributor’s inaugural national sales expo and trade show.

San Francisco - OpenTable, a provider of online restaurant reservations and part of The Priceline Group, has kicked off the national expansion of its pay with OpenTable feature with a launch in New York City. In addition to its new launch in New York City, OpenTable plans to expand its mobile payments presence in San Francisco, home to its mobile payment pilot which launched in February 2014, and to roll out the feature across the nation by introducing it in 20 cities before the end of 2014.

The smart home phenomenon is coming to dinner this Thanksgiving and Jennie-O and smart thermometer manufacturer iDevices are bringing the technology.

Kalamazoo, Mich. – A $2.2 million, 23,000-sq.-ft. retail center is reportedly planned for Kalamazoo, Michigan. According to the Kalamazoo Gazette, developer Habib Mandwee plans to open the center in a downtown area next to a location where Kalamazoo Valley Community College wants to build a health-focused campus.

Tenants for the retail center include Biggby Coffee and On the Rocks Market, with room for four other retailers. Developers hope to start construction in spring 2015 with a fall 2015 completion target.

San Jose, California – U.S. shopping trends showed some improvement in July 2014, although not all metrics experienced positive change, compared to the same month a year earlier. According to the RetailNext Insights Report of more than 13 million shopping trips in July 2014, sales per shopper increased 3.5% from July 2013.

Gold River, Calif. – Specialty online health- and beauty-care retailer SkinStore is using predictive technology from Coherent Path to help deliver personalized offers that build long-term customer loyalty. The cloud-based Coherent Path solution is designed to enable retailers to understand the trajectory of customer journeys and deliver the products, offers and experiences that drive satisfaction, loyalty and customer lifetime value.

Dole Fresh Fruit’s sales and marketing team will be taking a trip to Kannapolis, North Carolina, to see the company’s Nutrition Research Laboratory on the state’s research campus.
 
The visitors will be led by Dole’s VP of nutrition research Nicholas Gillitt, who will show them around the campus and explain research in the hope that the marketing team will pass it on to consumers.
 

San Antonio – Motor fuel and convenience store operator CST Brands Inc. reported net income of $32 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2014, down 22% from $41 million in the second quarter of the prior fiscal year. Until May 1, 2013, CST was still a wholly owned subsidiary of Valero and, as such, second quarter 2013 results do not include all of the expenses associated with being a public company.