Data & Analytics

MIAMI — PureFormulas, a growing e-retailer that offers natural health supplements, has appointed William Perez as its CIO. Perez is a 17-year veteran in the technology world with 13 years of experience in the Internet operation space.

“We’re excited to welcome Willy to the team,” said CEO José Prendes. “He will be instrumental in our continued growth strategy and will help take our entire interactive operation and customer experience to the next level.”

PURCHASE, N.Y. — PepsiCo has chosen three schools as the grand prize winners of the 2012-13 PepsiCo Dream Machine Recycle Rally, a national recycling program and contest designed to encourage students to recycle every day.  

The Target board of directors demonstrated its faith in the company’s cash generating capabilities on Wednesday and agreed to up the company’s quarterly dividend 19% to 43 cents a share.
 
The hefty increase ups the annual payout to $1.72 and moves the company closer to a long-term commitment to increase the full-year dividend amount to $3 by 2017. In addition, the company has established a target of growing earnings per share to $8 over the same time frame, up from $4.26 last year.

A 4.2% first quarter same store sales increase at teen retailer Five Below and better than expected results prompted the operator of 258 stores to increase its full year guidance.
 
Sales for the quarter ended May 4 increase 33.1% to $95.6 million and operating income swung to $3.2 million from a prior year loss of $2 million. Net income was $1.6 million compared to a net loss of $1.2 million the prior year.

Richmond, Va. -- Jones Lang LaSalle has closed the sale of phase I of Hancock Village on behalf of Edco in Richmond, Va.’s Chesterfield submarket.

Cole Real Estate Investments purchased the 153,853-sq.-ft. shopping center anchored by Dick’s Sporting Goods and Hobby Lobby. A Walmart Supercenter shadow-anchors the development.

JLL said the center is 100% leased.

Dallas -- Seattle’s Best Coffee is opening new operations in North Texas, according to CBRE. So far, 10 stores have opened throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area with more scheduled to open later this year.

CBRE Retail Brokerage provided market evaluation, mapping and demographic analysis, site selection and lease negotiation. CBRE Project Management provided construction services.

The 10 new stores are located throughout Burleson, Dallas, Fort Worth, Lancaster, McKinney and Rockwall.

Bradenton, Fla. -- Beall’s Inc. has replaced legacy point-of-sale software and hardware at 450 Beall’s Outlet and Burke’s Outlet stores with the latest version of  SAP’s POS application (POS 2.3 system).

Atlanta -- Executives from The Home Depot told attendees at an analyst meeting in New York on Monday that the company is focusing on improving its supply chain and Internet operations and expects a moderate recovery in the U.S. housing market. Roughly $450 million of Home Depot’s $1.5 billion capital spending budget for the current fiscal year is slated for IT projects.

In addition, Home Depot is also attempting to improve store productivity and is piloting five paint stores in the Chinese market.

Portland, Maine – Consumers younger than 35 are nearly twice as likely to download a mobile app from a retailer or brand as those older than 50, according to data from a new survey conducted by CashStar and Digital Research. More than half of consumers who download retailer or brand mobile apps are use them at least once a week, most commonly for coupons, discounts and sales.

Little Rock, Ark. – By focusing on its brand story and collaborative boards, Southern lifestyle retailer Bourbon & Boots has dramatically increased cross-channel traffic through its presence on the Pinterest social network.

Founder Matt Price described how Bourbon & Boots has maximized the value of its Pinterest activities during a session at last week’s Internet Retailer conference in Chicago.