Sales & Marketing

In one of the stranger situations in retail right now, J.C. Penney is defending itself against charges by activist investor Bill Ackman that it’s not moving fast enough to hire a full time CEO and remedy a situation that Ackman created when the guy he picked nearly destroyed the company.

New York – Law firm Morgan & Morgan is investigating potential legal claims against the board of directors of Saks Inc. relating to the proposed acquisition of Saks by Hudson's Bay Company. Morgan & Morgan's investigation concerns whether Saks' board of directors breached its fiduciary duties to act in the best interests of Saks' shareholders and to take all necessary steps to ensure that Saks' shareholders receive the maximum value readily available for their shares of Saks common stock.

Minneapolis — Holiday Stationstores has reached an agreement with I-90 Fuel Services to convert 16 of The Gas Stop convenience stores to Holiday Stationstores, expanding the Holiday brand in the South Dakota and Southwestern Minnesota markets.

The Gas Stop stores making the conversion are located in Sioux Falls, Aberdeen, Brandon, Mitchell, Mobridge, Pierre and Volga, South Dakota. The Minnesota stores are in Luverne and Worthington.

Doubling sales in any category within a four year time span would be an audacious goal for any retailer, but that was the objective Walmart set for itself in the beer category last fall, according to Bloomberg.

Oak Brook, Ill. – Despite declines in European and Asia-Pacific/Middle East/Africa (APMEA) same-store sales, positive domestic same-store sales performance in July resulted in a small global increase for McDonald’s Corporation. The fast-food giant reported 1.6% domestic same-store sales growth compared to July 2012 as well as 1.9% declines in both Europe and APMEA same-store sales, averaging out to a 0.7% global increase.

New York -- A group of 11 large U.S. retailers that report same-store sales results each month had a generally strong showing in July. However, Thomson Reuters analysis indicates significant discounting helped drive an overall 4.4% increase, more than double the 1.4% same-store sales rise recorded in July of last year.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Strong sales in linens, dresses and intimate apparel buoyed Stein Mart’s total sales for the second quarter ended August 3, which increased 3.8% to $290.9 million from $280.4 million for the same quarter last year. 

The company posted a comparable-store sales increase of 6.4% for the quarter. 

Naperville, Ill. – OfficeMax is speeding up the process of customer segmentation with Monetate LivePredict, an automated segment discovery product designed to automatically identify valuable customer segments and their attributes. Using LivePreict, OfficeMax intends to identify, at the brand and campaign levels, highest and lowest-performing segments.