Supply Chain & Merchandising

Chine-based e-commerce company DHgate allows consumers and business to purchase goods directly from Chinese manufacturers and has big growth plans after hiring veterans of Amazon, Google, eBay and Alibaba.

Taramac, Fla. — Furniture retailer City Furniture is completing a $17.5 realignment of its South Florida retail network with the opening of a new 34,000-sq.-ft. Ashley Furniture HomeStore in Cutler Bay, Florida. This location is adjacent to a 56,000-sq.-ft. City Furniture showroom that opened in October 2013, creating a 90,000-sq.-ft. superstore.

San Mateo, Calif. – Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group is debuting its U.S. e-commerce site, 11Main.com, with a beta rollout on Wednesday, June 11. The home page of the invite-only website says “We’re opening soon — our shop owners are getting unpacked and unsettled,” and has an online invite request option. (Alibaba has filed for an initial public offering in the United States, in May.)

Atlanta — Online shoppers want retailers to make it easier to purchase their goods and services, and also want websites and stores to work better together. For now, according to a new survey of 5,800 consumers from UPS and comScore Inc., they also prefer to evaluate and purchase products from their desktops rather than their mobile devices, and when it comes to shipping and returns, "free" is a driving factor to complete the sale.
 

Irvine, Calif. — PriceSpider, an online retail marketing service provider, is rolling out a re-pricing engine that enables manufacturers and resellers to automatically adjust pricing based on preset or on-the-fly criteria as it pertains to competitive market activity. The PriceSpider re-pricing engine provides the actionable data needed to set rules, manage strategy and optimize pricing activity with visibility into the market.

Hilo, Hawaii — KTA Super Stores, a six-store supermarket chain serving the main island of Hawaii, has finalized upgrading Symphony EYC G.O.L.D. to the latest software version. The new capabilities including direct store delivery (DSD) and invoice reconciliation are the first step in KTA’s incorporation of the latest enhanced version of Symphony EYC’s merchandise management system, which is planned to be implemented across all of its island stores.  

Outdoor retailer Sportsman’s Warehouse is off to a rough start as a newly minted public company, reporting an 18.1% decline in first quarter same store sales as firearms and ammunition sales evaporated.

Atlanta — Consumer spending in the United States grew 4.2% year-over-year in May 2014, compared to April’s 4.1% year-over-year growth. According to Spend Trend analysis from First Data Corp., spending growth was driven by May’s warm weather, which specifically spurred spending on travel and home improvement.