Supply Chain & Merchandising

For many retailers, Halloween has become one of their favorite times of year. Spending on Halloween-related costumes, decorations, candy, etc. has grown to the point it represents the second-highest consumer spending holiday, only trailing Christmas with NRF estimates of this year’s spending total reaching $6.9 billion. But while a good scare is all part of the annual Halloween fun, retailers need to ensure their omni-channel customers do not get scared away by frighteningly poor digital commerce features and functions.

Pittsburgh – Dick’s Sporting Goods opens five new stores across the U.S. on Nov. 8. The stores will be located in Dover, Del., Palm Desert, Calif., West Des Moines, Iowa, Sioux Falls, S.D., and Findlay, Ohio.

Dick’s will operate a total of 554 stores in the U.S. upon opening the five new stores. The Sioux Falls store will be the chain’s first store in South Dakota. This total will include three in Delaware, 32 in California, five in Iowa, and 38 in Ohio.

Dave Moss was named vp of merchandising and three other executives were elevated to the vice president level at Tyler, Texas-based Brookshire Grocery Co.

New York – J. Crew Group., Inc. is reporting several strong preliminary results to date for its third quarter of fiscal 2013. Through Oct. 5, 2013, J. Crew reports revenues increased $42.9 million, or 11.3%, to $422.3 million from $379.4 million last year.

San Diego — Petco has opened its first store in Mexico and announced plans for continued expansion in Mexico and Latin America through a joint venture with Grupo Gigante of Mexico.

The companies plan to open as many as 50 Petco stores in Mexico and Latin America by 2020.

It was steady as she goes at Procter & Gamble during the company’s first quarter as the nation’s largest consumer packaged goods company generated sales and profits that met expectations.
Sales increased 2% to $21.2 billion and net income increased 8% to slightly more than $3 billion, or $1.04 a share, from $2.8 billion, or 96 cents a share.

A compressed shopping season coupled with the continued growth of e-commerce has UPS forecasting that peak season daily package volumes will grow by 8%.

Cleveland - The Sherwin-Williams Company increased net income 12%, to $262.97 million from $234.95 million, during the third quarter of fiscal 2013.

Net sales grew 9.4% to $2.85 billion from $2.6 billion.