Data & Analytics

Houston — Francesca’s Holdings Corp. on Tuesday reported a 21% drop in profit during the first quarter of fiscal 2014, to $8.6 million from $10.9 million.  Harsh winter weather and higher expenses related to its boutique business contributed to the decline in net income. The company also reduced its annual outlook.

Francesca’s plans to open 85 new stores during fiscal 2014, including 16 in the second quarter.

Atlanta — Kathy Daly-Jennings, who most recently served as head of industry, retail vertical for Google, has joined Havertys as senior VP, marketing. She will replace Thomas P. Curran, who will retire at the end of June 2014, and report to Richard D. Gallagher, executive VP, merchandising.

Prior to Google, Daly-Jennings held marketing leadership positions at The Home Depot and The Coca-Cola Company.  

St. Petersburg, Fla. — HSN Inc. has promoted Maria Martinez to chief HR officer, effective immediately. In her new role, she will be responsible for providing leadership in executing human resources strategies in support of the company's business objectives.

She will have specific responsibility for talent acquisition and assessment, succession planning, leadership development, employee engagement, performance management, total rewards, and wellness programs. She will continue to be based at the company's headquarters in St. Petersburg.

Plano, Texas — Rent-A-Center, Inc. has appointed two new senior executives. The company named Guy J. Constant as executive VP finance, CFO and treasurer, and Jody Diaz as senior VP HR and chief people officer, both effective June 16, 2014.

Deerfield, Ill. — Market6, a provider of Web-based retail analytic applications, is introducing Market6 Vantage, a suite of retail analytic applications that automate and simplify joint business planning and retailer/supplier collaboration. Vantage is designed to enable retailers and their suppliers to streamline their collaboration efforts to build and execute more effective and profitable shopper-centric merchandising plans.

San Luis Obispo, Calif. — Shopatron, a provider of cloud-based distributed order management solutions, is releasing a free inventory visibility API. Shopatron Retailer Inventory Lookup is a cloud-based solution that offers enterprise-wide inventory visibility and also provides retailers with actionable analytics to improve in-store operations, stocking, merchandising and product marketing.

The solution enables retailers to instantly connect customers with local, available inventory.

New York — Joel Anderson, president and chief executive officer of Walmart.com., has left  the online giant to assume the role of president at Five Below, which targets pre-teens and teens with trendy, extreme-value merchandise priced at $5 and below. Walmart has appointed Fernando Madeira, CEO of Walmart.com's Latin America unit, as the new head of Walmart.com. He will relocate from Sao Paulo, Brazil, to San Bruno, California, where Wal-Mart’s global e-commerce operation is based.
 

Maria Martinez was elevated to the role of chief human resources officer at HSN, Inc., a $3.4 billion interactive multichannel retailer.

Mindshare Technologies acquired Empathica last year, rebranded the company as InMoment and launched a new customer experience optimization platform called the Experience Hub.

Target has bolstered its digital security efforts with the appointment of former General Motors and General Electric executive Brad Maiorino to the newly created role of SVP and chief information security officer.