News

The Emerson Group, a consumer products equity organization, announced the addition of Stephanie Gregg to the company.

Gregg joins Emerson from Insight Pharmaceuticals, where she served as director of sales for mass and dollar channels for nine years. Most recently at Insight, she worked with Emerson Group’s Walmart, Target and Dollar teams providing strategic direction, developing and implementing joint business plans, and directing an internal cross-functional team, while providing analytical support to deliver business results, Emerson said.
 

Family Dollar Stores on Tuesday announced that it has certified substantial compliance with both the Federal Trade Commission’s second request regarding the acquisition by Dollar Tree, as well as the second request regarding Dollar General's bid for the company.

Framingham, Mass. -- Staples Inc. is reportedly investigating a possible data breach. According to security blogger Brian Krebs, sources at several East Coast-based banks say it is likely that criminals gained access to customer card data at a group of Northeastern Staples stores including seven stores in Pennsylvania, at least three in New York City, and one in New Jersey.  

New York -- Using smartphones and tablets to shop for the holidays has grown by 53% since 2012, and is expected to play a big role in decision making and actual purchases this year, according to the American Express Spending & Saver Tracker. The report finds the average American consumer is back to holiday spending at 2012 levels, and will plan to shell out $842 this year (vs. $1,260 in 2013 and $848 in 2012).   Consumers saying they will use their gadgets to:

New York -- Twenty percent of American adults already own a wearable device and the adoption rate, on par with tablets in 2012, is quickly expected to rise. According to a PwC survey of 1,000 consumers, after dietary, exercise and medical information, an enhanced retail experience was at the top of the list of information Millennials would like wearable tech to provide them.

Austin, Texas -- A majority of Americans would be comfortable divulging information about themselves anonymously to their favorite stores (60%) or a product brand (56%), and close to half would anonymously share personal data to an app (46%). According to a new national survey from Wearables.com and The Center for Generational Kinetics, some consumers will also share personal information in exchange for certain benefits.  

Plano, Texas -- Pretax restructuring charges related to corporate reorganization and store closures, as well as pretax impairment charges, helped reduce net earnings at Rent-A-Center Inc. 7% to $25.3 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2014 from $27.2 million in the third quarter of the prior year. Revenues grew 2% to $769.5 million from $754.8 million, and same-store sales rose 1.9%.

 

Mountain View, Calif. -- AgilOne, the cloud-based predictive marketing company, announced that home design retailer Jonathan Adler will use AgilOne’s cloud platform to improve customer engagement by creating more personalized, data-driven marketing.

New York –- Magento, an EBay Enterprise company, has created the exclusive Fashion Partner Initiative. This program includes expert technology partners, system integrators, digital agencies and developers that can step in and act as an extension of a fashion retailer’s in-house team.