Sales & Marketing

Brooklyn, N.Y. -- West Elm is opening its first location in Missouri – at the St. Louis Galleria.

The 8,385-sq.-ft. store, slated to open in July, will incorporate works by local artists as part of its plan to support St. Louis talent.

“Our customers are as passionate about supporting artists in their local communities as we are at West Elm,” said Jim Brett, president of West Elm. “We are proud to be incorporating some of St. Louis’ most talented artists into the assortment for our new store.”

San Diego -- The San Diego office of Colliers International has announced that Rick Puttkammer is rejoining the firm as a senior VP. A 25-year veteran in retail property sales and leasing, Puttkammer will head up the firm’s retail division.

Most recently, Puttkammer was senior VP at Flocke & Avoyer in San Diego. From 1987 to 1997, he was senior marketing director at Colliers in San Diego.

PURCHASE, N.Y. — Ahead of the 84th Major League Baseball All-Star Game in New York, Pepsi has announced a national partnership with New York Yankees All-Star second baseman Robinson Cano.

Cano will be officially welcomed as Pepsi's latest brand ambassador in a tribute spot that will run during the MLB All-Star Game Tuesday, July 16, on Fox.

Chicago – Parents want to buy food and beverages for their kids that are healthy and appeal to the entire family. Results of a new proprietary study from food processing company Cargill show that 89% of parents said they ask their kids to broaden their tastes, and 69% said they ask their kids to try more adult food.

IRVINE, Calif. — Sanuk, a division of Deckers Outdoor Corporation, has made changes to its sales and marketing teams. The company has appointed Jeff Booth as its core national sales manager and Tommy Campagne as its core marketing manager.  

New York – Online apparel retailer Bonobos is automating its Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud infrastructure with the Opscode Hosted Chef solution. Using Hosted Chef and its Knife EC2 command-line plug-in for AWS, Bonobos' engineering team can now manage more than 150 cloud servers and ensure 100% uptime for its website operations. The retailer is automating processes including configuration management and application delivery, as well as responding to spikes in customer traffic and orchestrating application updates.

Total U.S. Shopper Traffic in Retail Stores and Malls for June 2013

Shopper activity slightly decreased last month, thus returning to seasonal standards after May holidays. Retail foot traffic decreased 1.3% in June compared to May 2013, a slight departure from recently reported positive month-over-month retail trends. However, foot traffic for June 2013 was relatively flat compared to the same month in 2012 — with an increase of 0.3%.

Winston-Salem, N.C. -- Krispy Kreme Doughnuts said its board has approved the repurchase of up to $50 million of the company's common stock, effective immediately.