Sales & Marketing

New York City -- The Kroger Co. has selected Oracle’s Agile Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) for Process to establish a platform for continually improving the customer experience. The supermarket operator will use the solution to integrate and streamline all aspects of product development, including managing specifications, suppliers, formulations, packaging and labeling, compliance, and quality.

HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill. — Sears Holdings announced that Edgar Huber has joined the company as CEO and president of Lands' End.  Huber is responsible for driving growth and profit opportunities for Lands' End, as well as continuing to drive the culture that provides customers with the quality, value and service that the brand has long been known for.  He was most recently EVP global business development for Liz Claiborne Inc.

LAKELAND, Fla. — Investors will wish even harder that Publix would go public, now that the company has reported strong quarterly results and a jump in its private stock price.

Publix, which is not publicly-traded company, said that its stock price rose from $21.65 per share to $22.05 per share, effective Aug. 1. The stock is only available to current Publix associates and members of its board of directors.

New York City -- Discount stores will continue to dominate as the destination for the majority of consumers’ back-to-school dollars this year, with office supply stores also remaining strong, according to a survey by Accenture on parents’ back-to-school shopping plans. The majority of parents (59%) will spend between $100 and $500 on back-to-school shopping this year, with 21% of consumers saying they plan to spend more than $500 this year. That’s down from 28% in 2010, indicating a decline in spending on the big ticket items for school.

New York City -- Aeropostale has launched a fully integrated Facebook Store, powered by Usablenet's technology platform, that combines shopping and social media and extends full e-commerce functionality to the Aeropostale Facebook community.

In addition to being able to purchase from Aeropostale's entire online inventory, the integrated Facebook e-commerce store allows users to easily 'Like' and share items and purchases with their Facebook network - leveraging the viral nature of Facebook's news feed.

New York City -- Publix Super Markets said its second-quarter net income rose 9.7%, to $382.4 million.

Total sales increased 5.8%, to $6.6 billion. Same-store sales rose 4.2%.
 

The big relaunch of Target’s digital platform isn’t due until later this fall, but that didn’t deter the company from offering plenty of ways to interact electronically with the brand for back-to-school.

NEW YORK — Discount stores will continue to dominate as the destination for the majority of consumers’ back-to-school dollars this year, with office supply stores also remaining strong, according to a survey by Accenture on parents’ back-to-school shopping plans. The majority of parents (59%) will spend between $100 and $500 on back-to-school shopping this year, with 21% of consumers saying they plan to spend more than $500 this year. That’s down from 28% in 2010, indicating a decline in spending on the big ticket items for school.