Sales & Marketing

LOS ANGELES — With the back-to-school season well underway, a new spending forecast from e-commerce platform provider PriceGrabber conflicts with other recent studies and highlights the danger of placing much credence in what shoppers say about their spending intentions.

BOCA RATON, Fla. — Vitacost.com, a leading online retailer of health and wellness products, has appointed Chris Cavalline to the newly created position of CMO. 

Cavalline is a 25-year retail industry veteran, and was most recently SVP of merchandising and e-commerce at Kohl's Department Stores. Previously, Cavalline held senior leadership positions at Macy's, Inc. and May department stores. He earned a B.S. in physics and civil engineering from Washington and Lee University.

New York -- The Dump Furniture Store plans to open a 134,000-sq.-ft. outlet in Lombard, Ill. and a 215,000-sq.-ft. warehouse in Addison, Ill. over the summer.

With 11 locations, the big-box retailer offers discounted famous-name furniture in stores open only on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

WTI expects that retail August 2013 will be the coolest in four years for the nation as a whole. Temperatures will trend cooler than last year in parts of the Northeast and in the western half of the nation, while temperatures will trend warmer in the Southeast and Ohio Valley. The Plains states and Rocky Mountains will see increased precipitation this year, while the Southwest and Southeast will trend drier than last year. August is expected to be another active month for tropical systems, especially during the latter part of the month.

Sidney, Neb. -- Cabela’s Inc. on Thursday announced it will open four new markets in 2014:  Acworth, Ga., Augusta, Ga.; Missoula, Mont.; and Barrie, Ontario (Canada).  The outdoor goods retailer also reported that its second-quarter net income surged 31% on a 10.5% rise in same-store sales. 

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — O’Reilly Automotive achieved a record quarterly gross margin of 50.8% for the second quarter ended June 30, primarily driven by improvements in acquisition costs, product mix and pricing management, according to president and CEO Greg Henslee.

The automotive aftermarket industry retailer saw sales for the quarter rise to $1.71 billion, a 10% increase from $1.56 billion for the same period one year ago. Gross profit for the second quarter was $872 million, a 12% increase from $780 million for the same period one year ago. 

The top U.S. retailers’ web sites are barely keeping up with customers, according to a report by Radware, a provider of application delivery and application security solutions for virtual and cloud data centers. Now in its fifth edition, the “State of the Union: Ecommerce Page Speed & Web Performance, Summer 2013” study reveals that websites for the top 500 U.S. retailers continue to slow down, a 13.7% drop since spring 2012.

NEW YORK — Colgate-Palmolive saw a boost in second-quarter net sales as its global market share in toothpaste and manual toothbrushes hit record highs year-to-date.

Net sales for the quarter totaled $4.35 billion, up 2% compared with the year-ago period. 

Net income, which included charges related to its restructuring program, totaled $561 million, or 60 cents per diluted share, for the quarter. This compares with net income of $627 million, or 65 cents per diluted share, in the year-ago period.