News

John Douglas has been named chief technology officer at Tory Burch LLC.   In this newly created position, Douglas will be responsible for leading the company’s global technology and IT functions.   Previously, Douglas was the CIO with MCM Fashion Group. Prior to that position, he spent nine years as CTO at Burberry.  

Petco appointed retail veteran John Zavada as senior VP and CIO.   In his new position, Zavada will lead Petco's information technology strategies, teams and projects, including the company's business process optimization and enterprise program management office.    Prior to joining Petco, Zavada served as senior VP and CIO at Restoration Hardware. He also held CIO positions at Guitar Center, Big Lots, Limited Inc., and Victoria's Secret Stores.  

Gone are the days when Black Friday signified the official launch of the holiday shopping season.    In fact, nearly half (49%) of shoppers will have a bulk of their holiday shopping done by Thanksgiving Day, according to a new survey from market intelligence solutions provider Market Track. And digital deals will be the catalyst.  

By any measure, empirical and anecdotal, the number of people visiting retail stores is down. There are plenty of theories about why: it’s the mass movement of shoppers to online; it’s changing consumer preferences; it’s the weather; it’s those pesky, hard-to- figure-out millennials who would rather hunt for Pokémon than bargains at the mall.   

Casto has been successful building shopping centers in Ohio for 70 years because it’s not afraid to shift with the times, Don M. Casto III said in yesterday’s edition of the Columbus Dispatch.   The company has increasingly joined forces with other developers on mixed-use projects and turned back to its roots of building residences and retail buildings in downtown Columbus, the paper reported.   

Jason LaRose has been named Under Armour’s president, North America.    LaRose succeeds Matthew Mirchin, who will transition to the role of strategic advisor, global rrevenue, effective Oct. 1.    The two men will continue to closely work together to “accelerate our footprint in North America,” Kevin Plank, founder and CEO of Under Armour said in a statement.  

Photo: Brian Cornell
  Target Corp. CEO Brian Cornell made a rousing appeal to the chain’s associates at the company’s annual fall meeting.   "We have 137 days in front of us to turn this into a winning year, to start that second-half rally," he said, the Star Tribune reported.      

Industry observers are reporting that customer service is on the decline. The culprit: contact centers.  

Rent-A-Center customers can now attain merchandise even faster.   The rent-to-own retailer added Provenir Cloud, from risk analytics and decisioning solutions provider, Proviner, to support the processing of customer applications for lease purchase agreements across its Acceptance Now division. AcceptanceNow partners with a variety of furniture, appliance and other retailers, increasing shoppers’ accessibility to high quality brands.