Supply Chain & Merchandising

Canadian discounter Dollarama has turned to an Office Depot executive to guide the company through expansion plans in 2015.

The company announced that Elisa D. Garcia has been appointed as an independent director and member of the nominating and governance committee of the corporation. Garcia's appointment expands the company’s board of directors to 10 directors, seven of whom are independent.

Minneapolis – Best Buy Co Inc. has added service from the Curbside mobile shopping app to several stores in the Bay Area, including San Francisco and San Jose. Curbside enables consumers to purchase items from local retailers and then pick them up outside of local stores with deliveries directly to their cars.

Build-A-Bear Workshop was busy building a lot of bears this holiday season, if the retailer’s same store sales are any indication.

The company reported that same store sales were up 9.9% for the quarter, with a 8.5 percent increase in North America and 14 percent increase in Europe. Build-A-Bear also saw an $11.8 million profit for the fourth quarter, more than double the $5.4 million profit it reported in the prior-year quarter.

Bentonville, Ark. -- Increased traffic and better than expected same-store sales growth at Walmart’s U.S. stores were bright spots in the retailer’s fourth quarter earnings. But the big story in Thursday’s earnings release was the announcement that approximately 500,000 full-time and part-time associates at Walmart U.S. stores and Sam's Clubs will receive pay raises in the first half of the current fiscal year.  

Kenneth Cole Productions Inc. has appointed an apparel industry veteran as CEO.

Marc Schneider will assume responsibility for the company's retail, outlet, e-commerce, international, licensing and wholesale businesses. He takes over from founder Kenneth Cole, who has served as interim CEO since February 2011.

New York - Retail sales in the U.S. will reach $4.87 trillion for the full year 2015. According to EMarketer analysis, this represents a 4% increase from 2014.

U.S. retail e-commerce sales will total approximately $350 billion in 2015, up 14% from $305.7 billion the prior year. Despite rapid growth, retail ecommerce will still account for just 7% of total retail sales in the U.S. during the current year, EMarketer estimates.

With high-profile data breaches and the growing need to deliver a unified and differentiated customer experience, retail CIOs agree that security and digital innovation must be the top priorities for 2015.

According to a new report from the National Retail Federation and Forrester Research, managing data security is the most urgent focus area for retail CIOs, with 97% of surveyed business leaders placing it at the top of their 2015 priority lists.

Los Angeles -- The 29 West Coast ports, which handle 44% of container cargo in the U.S., are currently running at approximately 50-60% capacity, according to a report released Thursday by CBRE Group, the world’s largest commercial real estate services and investment firm. Five of the ports — Los Angeles, Long Beach, Oakland, Tacoma and Seattle — are among the top 10 largest and busiest ports (by total TEU volume) in the United States.