Sales & Marketing

Walnut Creek, Calif. — Transwestern has brokered leases on behalf of two retail tenants: 9Round Fitness & Kickboxing and Buon Vino Manufacturing.

9Round Fitness has taken a 1,300-sq.-ft. lease for five years in the Diablo Plaza in San Ramon, Calif.  Buon Vino signed a 1,635-sq.-ft. lease for three years at 1545 Locust St. in downtown Walnut Creek, Calif.

Amazon announced a record-setting holiday season for its annual membership program Amazon Prime. More than 1 million customers around the world became new Prime members in the third week of December.

On Amazon’s peak shipping day, more Prime items were shipped worldwide than ever before. The entire 2013 holiday season was the best ever for Amazon, with more than 36.8 million items ordered worldwide on Cyber Monday, which is a record-breaking 426 items per second, and millions of customers unwrapped Kindle e-readers and Kindle Fire tablets this holiday season.

Westbury, N.Y. – Online discount retailer DealYard has optimized its site in a customer-friendly way, using personalized recommendations that are provided by CRM vendor 4-tell. In addition, users will receive ideas on what to add next, a feature provided by VeInteractive.

Consumer electronics retailer HH Gregg is looking for a new chief financial officer after Jeremy Aguilar resigned from the company to accept a similar role elsewhere.

Aguilar spent eight years with the Indianapolis-based operator of 228 stores. His resignation is effective as of January 31 at which time SVP of finance Andrew Giesler will assume CFO responsibilities on an interim basis.

Armonk, N.Y. -- Overall Christmas Day online sales were up 16.5% from the same period last year. IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark data for Dec. 25, 2013 shows mobile traffic was the highest IBM recorded this holiday season, accounting for 48% of all online traffic, up 28.3% compared to the same period last year.

Mobile sales also remained strong, approaching 29% of all online sales, up 40% from 2012.

Cabot Creamery is honoring 50 volunteers from across the United States with what it’s calling a “trip of a lifetime.” On Jan. 11, the volunteers will board the Celebrity Cruises Summit for an all-expense-paid, six-day, seven-night Caribbean cruise organized in their honor, courtesy of the 1,200 farm families who own Cabot Creamery Cooperative.

The farmer-owners of Cabot have presented the Cabot Community Celebrity Award program since 2010 to recognize individuals from across the nation who have made a difference in their communities.

Travel company Thomson’s has debuted its next-generation travel-store concept, at Bluewater shopping center in Kent. Designed by 20.20, the format integrates the latest technology combined with great service to enhance the experience of choosing and booking a vacation.

A 1,500-store market potential and an untapped online opportunity await Michaels Stores in 2014 as the retailer’s private equity owners look to sell a portion of their stake and return the nation’s largest arts and crafts retailer to public ownership.