Sales & Marketing

LOS ANGELES — Virtual Piggy has appointed Ivo Weevers as the company’s creative director of mobile design. Weevers will be charged with leading and managing the mobile consumer experience team.

Weevers has 15 years of experience in creating mobile, web, device and desktop products across multiple platforms. He has directed design work and lead international design teams in the telecom, device, social media, banking, travel, entertainment, medical automotive industries.

Los Angeles -- Sports Chalet has unveiled a sleek, smaller format in downtown Los Angeles, opening a 27,000-sq.-ft. store at Brookfield Properties’ FIGat7th mall. The center, which opened in 1986, reopened last year after a $40 million renovation.

The modern layout, designed by Gensler, puts the emphasis on education and training, and features a dedicated central area, called the “Expert Center,” for classes and clinics. The new layout also includes flexible fixtures and modules that allow for the store to be transformed overnight.

Austin, Minn. -- Karis Ventures LLC, an online retailer of kitchen products, has unveiled a new e-commerce site known as MyNewKitchenProducts.com. Product categories include blenders, coffee makers, cookware sets, food dehydrators, frying pans, juicers, kitchen carts, pasta makers, pot racks, pressure cookers, refrigerators and mini fridges, rice cookers, wine racks and wine coolers. Customers can filter products by price and create personal accounts to track orders.

FORT WORTH, Texas — RadioShack has appointed marketing and communications executive Merianne Roth as the company’s new VP of communications.

Roth's responsibilities will include RadioShack's corporate communications, community relations, internal communications and event marketing. She will report to Jennifer Warren, SVP and CMO. 

Naperville, Ill. – OfficeMax Inc. is expanding its offering of private-label writing products by 75%. The new products include pens, mechanical pencils, highlighters and permanent markers. OfficeMax is offering more private label writing items while it is also restyling existing ones.

"Our new and re-styled OfficeMax brand writing products round out our private brand solutions to meet a variety of price points and writing needs for our customers," said Ronald Lalla, executive VP, chief merchandising officer at OfficeMax.

For the second time in the past six years, 99 Cents Only said it was unable to file its annual report within the timeframe specified by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The company’s annual report on form 10-K for its fiscal year ended March 30 was due at the SEC no later than June 28. However, because of a range of inventory valuation issues identified by auditors and a new CFO, the company said it was unable to file the report without unreasonable effort or expense. The company did not indicate when it planned to file the report other than as soon as practicable.

Plano, Texas -- J.C. Penney became the latest retail chain to say it will stop selling products associated with celebrity chef Paula Deen following her admission she has made racially derogatory remarks.

In addition, Ballantine Books has ended an agreement with her to publish five books. That agreement included "Paula Deen's New Testament: 250 Favorite Recipes, All Lightened Up,” which was scheduled for release in October 2013 and had reached number one in presales on Amazon.com and the Barnes and Noble website.

A carefully designed customer experience is the cornerstone of modern omni-channel customer relationship marketing. Retailers painstakingly craft marketing messages and engagement strategies that a customer will encounter at a specific time, in a specific place, via a specific channel. The experience often has some flexibility built in so it can adapt to individual customer behavior, wants and needs.