Supply Chain & Merchandising

It’s a common retail scenario: Last year, several sites deployed consistent schedules and set-points and also staged energy-consuming assets into groups that engaged at different times of the day. These executed measures led to significant kWh savings.

More strategic. That’s how Greg Esgar, CFO of Massage Envy Spa, the nation’s largest therapeutic massage chain, sums up the evolving role of today’s CFO. Esgar joined the Scottsdale, Arizona-based business as financial chief in 2004, two years after it was founded. As part of the executive team, he helped spur the company’s growth from 17 locations to its present total of nearly 1,000 sites in 49 states. With its membership-based, monthly-fee business model, Massage Envy Spa eschews the luxury amenities and high prices of traditional day spas.

▲ Investing in energy conservation makes business sense: According to ASHRAE, energy is the second highest retailer operating expense. A new white paper by the Retail Leaders Industry Association (RILA) and Schneider Electric notes that recent weather extremes have increased energy costs for retailers, and the trend is expected to continue. Factor in potential electricity price increases in the near future, and increases in energy costs could be significant.

Fast Retailing Co.’s Comptoir des Cotonniers division has launched “Fast Shopping,” which allows European shoppers to purchase items in 20 seconds on their mobile devices via an application from Powa Technologies, London. Shoppers using the PowaTag app can scan items they see on ads in various places to make the purchase and with one click, complete the transaction and have the goods delivered to their home within 48 hours.

By Adam Blake, VP and General Manager, Department and Specialty Retail, NCR

More than a dozen of Walmart’s top merchants are in new roles following a realignment of responsibilities that chief merchandising and marketing officer Duncan Mac Naughton said is designed to recognize customers’ needs and serve them more efficiently.
 

Duluth, Minn. – Specialty young women’s apparel store Maurices plans to open 15 new stores, including seven grand openings and eight reopenings, through the middle of July. The new stores include:

Grand Openings:
June 27: Lufkin, Texas at Lufkin Mall and Greensburg, Indiana, at Greensburg Crossing.
July 4: Aurora, Colorado, at The Gardens on Havana.
July 5: Hoffman Estates, Illinois, at Poplar Creek Crossing.

Toronto - Slate Retail REIT has entered into a binding agreement to purchase North Summit Square, a 99% occupied, 224,530-sq.-ft. grocery-anchored shopping center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for $15.8 million. The property is anchored by Sam's Club.

"We are very excited to announce our first acquisition since listing on the TSX," said Blair Welch, CEO of Slate Retail. "We see several further opportunities to make accretive acquisitions of grocery-anchored centers in attractive markets."