News

A Walgreens store in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood is co-hosting its reopening with Hallmark on Tuesday, unveiling an updated Hallmark department tailored to the neighborhood’s LGBT population.

Designer clothing and accessories retailer Rent the Runway’s business is dependent on an advanced reverse logistics and transportation network, which is why the company just hired a leading logistic executive from an online competitor.

New York-based Rent the Runway named Chris Halkyard its first ever chief logistics officer to oversee the company’s just-in-time reverse logistics and vertically integrated operating systems.

Foot Locker is teaming up with ASICS on a creative campaign that tells the life story of runners on film.

The "Real Lives. Real Runners." campaign will provide a platform for runners to capture and share their stories. Building on the successful 2014 "All Runners Welcome" campaign from Foot Locker and ASICS, "Real Lives. Real Runners." invites filmmakers to identify authentic runners and document in a short film why they run and how running impacts their lives.

Federal regulations governing unmanned aircraft systems, or drones, will be in place by this time next year.

Most retailers won’t be ready, but Amazon says it will be as soon as the feds are. Testifying at a congressional hearing on June 17, Paul Misener, Amazon.com’s vice president of global public policy told lawmakers it would be ready to deliver packages via its service branded as Prime Air as soon as federal rules are in place.

Pier 1 Imports reported same store sales growth for the first quarter, which the company’s CEO credited to the completion of an omnichannel transformation.

Armonk, N.Y. — Retailers looking ahead to meeting the needs of holiday shoppers should be aware of the continuing growth of mobile’s importance as a consumer channel. According to IBM’s Eighth Annual Online Retail Holiday Readiness Report, mobile accounted for 23% of sales and 45% of traffic in November and December 2014, respectively.

Always on the hunt for quicker and less costly deliveries, Amazon is considering paying ordinary people (as opposed to shippers such as FedEx or UPS) to deliver packages as part of a crowdsourced delivery program, according to The Wall Street Journal. They would drop off the packages to customers on the way to their own destinations.

The service is referred to internally as "On My Way," the report said, and no other details are available. The report also noted that the plan may not move forward. 

Seattle – Starbucks Corp. is expanding its mobile order and payment service to about 3,400 stores in 21 new states in the southern and central United States. The company launched mobile order and payment feature as a pilot in Portland, Ore. in Dec. 2014.

The mobile payment feature allows Starbucks mobile app users to place their order in advance and pick it up at a selected Starbucks location. It is integrated into the Starbucks app and loyalty program.

New York — Gap stores have failed to keep up with the fashion tastes of millennial shoppers, who have a much different fashion sense than the generation before them, according to the Washington Post. Read the full story here.

Dollar General, which recently opened its 12,000 store, has named five executives to key leadership positions within its global supply chain functions and merchandising organizations.

The following promotions are effective immediately:

•   Mike Kindy has been promoted to senior VP, global supply chain with responsibility for transportation as well as inventory and demand management, demand planning and supply chain solutions. Kindy has been with Dollar General since 2007.