Sales & Marketing

San Francisco -- Gap Inc. announced Monday that it has appointed former H&M global sales head Stefan Larsson as the new president of Old Navy, effective the end of October.

Larsson replaces Tom Wyatt, who left the company in February.

The move is expected to pay dividends for Gap as it preps to open its first overseas Old Navy store – in Japan – this July.

Boca Raton, Fla. -- Office Depot Inc. reported Tuesday that it swung to a profit of $41 million in the first quarter ended March 31, compared with a loss of $15 million in the same period last year.

Sales fell 3.4% to $2.87 billion, missing Wall Street’s expected $2.89 billion in revenue. Same-store sales at the office supply retailer’s North American stores decreased 6%, and total sales for the division dropped 8% to $1.2 billion, impacted by store closures and fewer selling days.

Green Bay, Wis. -- Shopko Stores, through a partnership with Wishabi, is now offering customers access to a digital circular online at Shopko.com.

Armonk, N.Y. -- A report released Tuesday by IBM found that the U.S. online retail sector grew more than 6% in March 2012. This upswing in March closes a quarter in which online sales were down slightly from the same period in 2011.

San Jose, Calif. -- Retail clinics and big-name medical centers are poised for dramatic expansion, according to two well-known speakers at the American Telemedicine Association's annual meeting in San Jose this week.

NEW YORK — Millennial shoppers (consumers ages 18 to 34 years) now represent the highest percentage of Americans who do not have enough money to cover their basic needs, according to WSL/Strategic Retail, a leading authority on shopper behavior and retail trends.

New York -- Millennial shoppers (consumers ages 18-34) now represent the highest percentage of Americans who do not have enough money to cover their basic needs according to WSL/Strategic Retail, a leading authority on shopper behavior and retail trends. The finding, which noted that nearly 25% of this young adult market say they are not able to make ends meet – as compared with 17% of adults ages 35-54, and only 13% of those age 55 and over – was revealed as part of the company’s How America Shops MegaTrends report, Moving On 2012.

A friend of mine recently called to ask my opinion of the “new” Gap. She had just returned from shopping at The Grove, an upmarket mall in Los Angles, and couldn’t get over how “different” the Gap seemed. It wasn’t just the merchandise as much as the overall environment that had struck her. Everything seemed so “fresh,” she said.