Sales & Marketing

Dallas — SRS Real Estate Partners www.srsre.com has opened the doors to a new office in Birmingham, Ala. The company has also brought in Martin Smith to serve as senior VP and co-market leader alongside Josh Burmeister.

A 13-year veteran of the commercial real estate industry, Smith specializes in landlord representation, tenant representation and investment sales. Prior to joining SRS, he spent seven years with Retail Specialists, where he was director of brokerage and project leasing.
 

By Yaromir Steiner

New York -- Consumers are choosing specialty foods over conventional foods at record levels, according to research from the Specialty Food Association.
 
Nearly 75% of U.S. consumers report making specialty food purchases this year, a major increase since the economic downturn of 2009 when only 46% reported that they bought these high-quality products. Consumers surveyed say they spend about one quarter of their at-home food dollars on specialty options like artisanal chocolates, cheeses and oils.

New York -- Help CSA determine the Most Innovative Retail Store of 2013 by voting for one of the five stores below. (For photos and info on the nominees, go to chainstoreage.com/multimedia.)

Global Payments president Jeffrey S. Sloan has been named as the company's CEO by the company’s board of directors. He succeeds Paul R. Garcia, who has been the company’s CEO since June 1999 and Chairman since October 2002.  

Under Garcia's leadership, Global Payments became a publicly traded company in early 2001. At that time, Global Payments generated annual revenues of under $350 million, nearly all of which was sourced in the United States. Today, Global Payments is a multinational corporation with nearly $2.5 billion in revenues for fiscal year 2013.

Los Altos, Calif. -- Catalog Spree, the personal digital mall that lets consumers browse and shop their favorite brands, has teamed with Google to distribute interactive retail catalogs and lookbooks on the web through Lightbox Ads. These targeted ads will feature Catalog Spree's full-page catalogs and lookbooks, and will be distributed on the Google Display Network, which reaches more than 100 million American consumers.

Los Angeles – The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf has experienced significant lift across key social metrics such as local Facebook fans and impressions using the MomentFeed location-based marketing platform.

New York -- Despite the availability of retail technology, price and product selection are still the largest factors influencing shopper decisions, according to an annual study by global IT services and consulting firm Cognizant. Fifty-five percent of shoppers will leave a store to look online or shop another store if they think a price seems too high, and 21% will ask for a price match.