Data & Analytics

San Francisco -- Zynga Inc. named former Best Buy executive David Lee as CFO, effective April 14, as the online games company and creator of “Farmville” seeks to return to growth. He will replace current CFO Mark Vranesh who has decided to leave the company.

Lee was previously the senior VP of corporate finance, treasury, mergers and acquisitions and corporate strategy at Best Buy.

New York -- March was a so-so month for retailers, whose performance was impacted by unspring-like, cold temperatures in many parts of the country and a late Easter. (Easter falls on April 20 this year as opposed to March 31 last year.)

The eight retailers tracked by Thomson Reuters posted a 2.2% increase in March same-store sales, better than the expected 1.4% increase.

Montreal – Dollarama Inc. reported an increase in sales, net earnings and same-store sales for the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2014, compared to the same periods in the prior year. During the fourth quarter, net earnings rose 8% to $83 million from $77.1 million.

Meanwhile, sales rose 4% to $582.3 million from $561.9 million and same-store sales grew 1.1%. The addition of 89 net new stores, increases in same-store sales and average transaction size helped drive overall sales growth.

Niwot, Colo. -- Crocs Inc. has opened its first LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)-certified store, in Syracuse, N.Y. As detailed in Crocs’ new 2013 sustainability report, the store is certified at the LEED Silver level and features a high-efficiency LED lighting system and low-VOC and sustainable building materials.

Naples, Fla. - Naples Soap Company has chosen Opterus’ Store Ops Center as its communications and task management solution. Opterus’ Store Ops-Center is a cloud solution designed specifically for retail to manage and execute store tasks and communications.

The solution measures and increases operational compliance, communicates corporate policy, manages day-to-day objectives and tasks, and handles issues between corporate office and store locations

Allen, Texas -- Forte Payment Systems is launching Forte Checkout, an intuitive platform for online payment acceptance that supports electronic check in addition to credit and debit card payment methods. Forte Checkout integrates seamlessly and securely to applications that need payment handling capabilities.

New York -- Japanese online giant Rakuten has teamed up with First Bankcard to launch the Rakuten Rewards MasterCard Program, which provides cardholders with reward points for using their credit card to shop on Rakuten.com and elsewhere.

Rakuten.com, formerly Buy.com, is Rakuten's U.S. marketplace, offering consumers more than 17 million products at everyday low prices from a network of small and large business shop owners.