Sales & Marketing

Sears Holdings has appointed former Tesco executive Alasdair James as president and chief member officer for the Kmart business.

In this role, James will be responsible for driving the Kmart format strategy, managing the Kmart P&L and aligning merchandise, marketing, pricing and selling with the needs and wants of Shop Your Way members.

Cleveland -- WorkPlace Impact found in a recent survey that 49% of working female consumers are making millions of trips between Monday and Friday. What’s more, 46% of the women that WorkPlace Impact surveyed reported that they regularly purchase groceries on their way to or from the office or during a lunch break.

Further affirming that working women often have groceries on their mind during the workday, the study also found that 84.4% of the women surveyed said they regularly or occasionally add items to their grocery shopping lists at work.

New York -- The latest SpendingPulse report from MasterCard showed that U.S. retail sales rose 4.6% year-over-year in July, the largest year-over-year gain since October 2012.

Lodging, Airlines and Restaurants were among the top categories for U.S. retail sales last month, while Automotive, Grocery and Luxury items (excluding Jewelry) were less sought after by consumers.

Destination Maternity Corporation’s Ed Krell is stepping down as the company's CEO and as a member of its board of directors. Anthony M. Romano has been tapped as new executive chief and will be appointed to the board, effective immediately.

Orlando, Fla. -- Darden Restaurants, Inc., which operates the Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse banners among others, has completed the repurchase of approximately $900 million of the previously announced $1 billion debt retirement, leaving approximately $1.6 billion of debt on its balance sheet.

Home furnishings retailer West Elm, the fast-growing division of Williams-Sonoma with 58 stores and counting, plans to launch a contest called “We Love Local Small Business Grant.”

Designed to support U.S.-based artists, makers and designers as they grow and scale their businesses, the small business grant contest will this week with open online submissions.

Now that the dog days of summer are here, it’s a perfect time to go fishing. While fishing may be the opposite of work (at least if done properly), there are still valuable lessons digital retailers can take from the ocean, lake or stream back to the office. Here are a few fishing-related digital retail tips even non-anglers can follow.

Three executives were named to new roles at leading appliance and consumer electronics manufacturer Haier America.

Haier America, part of the $29 billion Haier Group, named Gina Copeland SVP of air quality, Sanjay Gupta VP of product platform development for major appliances and Paul Riley as VP of sales and marketing for major appliances.