Sales & Marketing

Boulder, Colo. -- In survey results released Wednesday by Market Force Information, DSW was named America’s No. 1 shoe retailer by more than 4,000 consumers polled.

Nordstrom, Nike, Shoe Carnival and Famous Footwear rounded out the top five.

SALISBURY, N.C. — Food Lion has launched its "Hunger Has a Cure" campaign to support Feeding America and its network of local food banks. The two-week campaign, which allows customers to donate in $1 or $3 increments at the register, runs through April 16 and will help feed local families in need.

Deerfield, Ill. -- Walgreens reported Wednesday that sales for the month of March increased 2.3% to $6.2 billion.

Total front-end sales increased 5.4% compared with the same month in fiscal 2012, while same-store front-end sales increased 4.2%. Front-end sales will have benefited from a March 31 Easter — last year Easter sales fell in April. As a result Walgreens said it will report combined comps for March and April with its April sales results.
 

Food Lion store manager Charles Inman received the retailer’s highest honor this week and offered yet another example of the growth potential the retail industry offers.

Inman joined Food Lion in 2002 as a cashier and over the years held positions of increasing responsibility, including produce manager, office manager and assistant store manager.　He was later promoted to store manager and was recently selected from among a group of 1,119 store managers to receive the retailer’s Store Manager Excellence Award.

Los Angeles - Bebe stores announced Wednesday it has named Katrina Glusac as chief merchandising officer, effective immediately.

In her new role, Glusac will lead the merchandising, visual merchandising and planning & allocations teams in defining and building the brand’s merchandising offerings across all categories.
 
Most recently, Glusac served as chief merchant and VP merchandising at ShoeDazzle.com. Prior to that, she was divisional VP and general merchandising manager of Guess.

HAMPSTEAD, Md., — JoS. A. Bank Clothiers reported that its net sales for the fiscal year were $1.05 billion, representing a 7.1% gain as compared with net sales of $979.9 million in fiscal year 2011. Comparable-store sales decreased 0.5% during fiscal year 2012, while direct marketing sales increased 22.7%. Combined comparable-store and Internet sales in fiscal year 2012 increased 2% when compared with fiscal year 2011.

By Greg Munves, [email protected]

If you’re like many mid-level or tier one retailers, online or brick-and-mortar, you’ve probably made a significant investment in Big Data, capturing and analyzing customer buying patterns across your business. You may not realize, however, that this huge IT investment can actually be a profit center, if you sell your data back upstream to your suppliers.
 

New York -- Staples named former Walmart.com CEO Raul Vazquez to serve on its the board of directors.

Vazquez currently serves as CEO and a director of Progreso Financiero, financial services firm focused on serving the needs of "under-banked" Hispanic customers. The election of directors at Staples will take place at the company’s annual meeting on June 3.