Sales & Marketing

Virginia Beach, Va. -- Divaris Real Estate announced Tuesday the appointment of Eric Bucklew as general broker for its Virginia Beach office.

Bucklew will focus on retail sales and leasing services to support the expansion of DRE's portfolio of leased and managed properties in the Hampton Roads, Va., region.

Atlanta -- A report released Tuesday by First Data Corp., which tracks same-store consumer spending by credit, signature debit, PIN debit, EBT cards and checks at U.S. merchant locations, found that card spend growth slowed significantly in July. However, dollar volume growth at general merchandise stores, including value retail, rose 10.3%, the largest increase in 10 months, as value retailers increased merchant promotional activity and discounting to attract consumers.

San Francisco -- Visa announced Tuesday that it plans to accelerate the migration to EMV contact and contactless chip technology in the United States.

The adoption of dual-interface chip technology will help prepare the U.S. payment infrastructure for the arrival of NFC-based mobile payments by building the necessary infrastructure to accept and process chip transactions that support either a signature or PIN at the point of sale.

SECAUCUS, N.J. — Ashley Stewart, manufacturer of plus size apparel, announced that its board of directors has appointed Celia Clancy as president and CEO. 

Camp Hill, Pa. -- Rite Aid Corp. announced Monday it has named Susan Henderson as senior VP and chief communications officer to replace Karen Rugen, who retired last month.

Henderson previously worked for Chicago-based strategy execution and employment engagement firm Gagen MacDonald; before that, she was VP communications for Harley-Davidson. She has also worked for the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co. in Chicago, Kohl's Department Stores and the Miller Brewing Co.
 

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Children will be returning to school in a matter of weeks, and many of them will be joining or returning to some sort of sporting activity. Enter Sports Authority, which is answering the need for sporting goods by opening six news stores on Aug. 13. The six new stores will open in five states nationwide, in the major markets of Miami, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Chicago and Milwaukee, the company reported.

The store locations will be as follows:

• Miami Beach, Fla. at 3401 N. Miami Ave.

Target produced another month of solid same-store sales growth in July and had a lot of good things to say about its future prospects. But judging from the action in the company’s share price in the intervening days, it was as if second-quarter earnings per share had come in well short of analysts’ expectations. Target got caught up in the selling free-for-all that occurred on Friday when it appeared the United States was in for a credit rating downgrade followed by a further acceleration on Monday after the downgrade occurred.

Los Angeles -- American Apparel announced the extension of its partnership with ASOS. The U.K.-based fashion site, which has more than 3.7 million members, has expanded its buy of American Apparel products based on a 100% sell-through rate of a test buy earlier this year.