News

Dollar General adds another DC
Even if Dollar General doesn’t prevail in its efforts to acquire Family Dollar the company’s expanding distribution infrastructure is positioned to support future growth.

Dollar General said it plans to build the 13th distribution center in its nationwide network in San Antonio. The facility will measure more than 900,000-sq.-ft., employ roughly 530 people and serve more than 1,000 stores when it opens in October 2015, the company said.
Frascotti named top toy exec at Hasbro
Global branded play leader Hasbro, Inc. today announced the promotion of John Frascotti to the newly-created position of president, Hasbro Brands, effective immediately.

In this new role, Frascotti assumes the additional responsibilities of worldwide product development and now oversees all of the company’s global marketing and design and development teams. By combining the teams, the company will continue to drive strong innovation, maximize operational efficiency, facilitate greater collaboration and streamline decision-making.

eBay enables more commerce in Q3

Enabled commerce volume at eBay surged 27% in the company’s third quarter with cross border trade showing particular strength, but it wasn’t enough to prevent the company from revising downward its full year outlook.
Land O’Lakes challenges food leaders

Ensuring the roughly nine billion people who are estimated to inhabit the planet by 2050 have enough to eat is a big challenge. That’s why Land O’Lakes has introduced new program to fund big ideas from future food leaders.
O Alliance recruits circular retail exec

Former Delia’s and J. Crew executive Walter Killough has joined consulting firm O Alliance as managing director.

The O Alliance is a new consulting firm positioned to help retailers pursue the concept of circular commerce. In his new role, Killough will be responsible for business development, strategic partnerships and overall day-to-day management of the company. Killough spent 10 years with junior’s retailer Delia’s and most recently served as CEO. Prior to that he served as COO of J. Crew Group.
Housewares get “inspired”

A new online resource created by the International Housewares Association (IHA) delivers fresh content on emerging home trends and housewares products.

The site, IHAInspiredHome.org, offers compelling information and ideas across a broad spectrum of home lifestyle categories, enabling consumers to connect directly with brands and companies that can meet their housewares needs.
Shaq-A-Clause and Toys”R”Us spread holiday cheer

The holidays will be a little more joyous this year for some of the 14.7 million U.S. children living in poverty.
Wal-Mart cuts back U.S. supercenter growth; ups e-commerce spending

Bentonville, Ark. -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is planning to sharply cut back the growth of its U.S. supercenters in favor of smaller-format stores and acccelerated e-commerce and digital investments.
Report: Only 5% of retailers have fully executed omnichannel strategy

Minneapolis -- Few companies (5%) believe they are “advanced” when it comes to omnichannel capabilities, and between 35% and 40% believe they are lagging, according to a report by SPS Commerce, a provider of enterprise retail cloud services. The company’s third annual “Retail Insight” report confirms the cross-functional challenges retailers, suppliers and logistics firms face as they build omnichannel capabilities into their operations.
And the most-loved brands of millennials are…

St. Louis -- Nike, Apple, Samsung, Sony, and Walmart are the top five “most beloved” brands of millenials in a report by digital advertising agency Moosylvania. The 2015 Top 50 Millennial Brand Ranking Report is based on panel studies of 1,500 millennials (defined as aged 14 to 35).
Study: Retailer web pages load too slowly

Tel Aviv, Israel -- The average online shopper expects a Web page to render in less than three seconds, but analysis of the load times of the top 100 retailers reveals that the median home page on a desktop takes 6.5 seconds to render its primary content and 11.4 seconds to fully load.
Giant Eagle pilots Brickstream in-store analytics

Pittsburgh –- Multi-format food, fuel and pharmacy retailer Giant Eagle Inc. is piloting smart devices from Brickstream for capturing and analyzing in-store data at six stores. Brickstream’s hardware and software solutions deliver the equivalent of “clickstream” analytics for the brick-and-mortar world.