Data & Analytics

Westlake Ace Hardware has announced two executive promotions.   The company promoted current COO Joe Jeffries to president and COO, continuing to support CEO Tom Knox. In addition, Andrew Schmitt will be promoted to the position of VP of operations for Westlake Ace Hardware. Schmitt currently holds the position of director of retail operations – Western Division, for Ace Hardware Corporation.  

Amazon is extending its brick-and-mortar brand exposure, once again — albeit in an unconventional way.   Mattress retailer Tuft & Needle will open its newest store in October, in Seattle. And the self-funded specialty retailer is relying on Amazon’s technology and services to drive its success, according to ReCode.  

While the number of cyber-attacks have declined in the last year, a majority of companies still feel susceptible to data threats.   This was according to the “2017 Thales Data Threat Report, Retail Edition,” from Thales e-Security and analyst firm 451 Research. The study is based on responses from more than 1100 senior security executives, including in the retail segment, from across the globe.   

Florida's largest supermarket chain on Tuesday reported higher sales and revenues for its second quarter. Prior to releasing its results, the company cut the price of its stock.   Publix’s sales in the second quarter rose 3.6% to $8.4 billion, from last year’s $8.1 billion. Same-store sales increased 1.6%.      Net earnings increased 3.5% to $495.1 million, compared to $478.2 million in the year-ago period.    

A new service is helping retailers adhere to newly introduced interoperability standards related to QR code-based payments.   In a move to standardize emerging cashless payments, EMVCo, the global technical body that manages the EMV Specifications, released new global QR Code Payment standards — a move that will allow retailers to process mobile payments made through the two-dimensional machine-readable barcodes. Visa and the other EMVCo members worked to develop these new globally interoperable EMV specifications. 

Digital transformation is accelerating the pace of change within the store environment.