News

Cleveland -- WorkPlace Impact found in a recent survey that 49% of working female consumers are making millions of trips between Monday and Friday. What’s more, 46% of the women that WorkPlace Impact surveyed reported that they regularly purchase groceries on their way to or from the office or during a lunch break.

Further affirming that working women often have groceries on their mind during the workday, the study also found that 84.4% of the women surveyed said they regularly or occasionally add items to their grocery shopping lists at work.

New York -- Application delivery and security solution-provider for virtual and cloud data centers, Radware, announced Blueport Commerce, a Software-as-a-Service omnichannel solution for the furniture industry, has selected the Alteon NG to help drive online sales and manage its ecommerce platform.

By Breton Leone-Quick and Steve Ganis

Now that the dog days of summer are here, it’s a perfect time to go fishing. While fishing may be the opposite of work (at least if done properly), there are still valuable lessons digital retailers can take from the ocean, lake or stream back to the office. Here are a few fishing-related digital retail tips even non-anglers can follow.

Brooklyn, N.Y. -- Home furnishings retailer West Elm is launching what it calls “We Love Local Small Business Grant” contest, designed to support U.S.-based artists, makers and designers as they grow and scale their businesses.

The contest launches Aug. 12 with open online submissions, followed by in-store portfolio reviews in five stores across the country. The public will vote online for one of 20 finalists selected by West Elm, and the winner will be announced on Nov. 19.

Orlando, Fla. -- Darden Restaurants, Inc., which operates the Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse banners among others, has completed the repurchase of approximately $900 million of the previously announced $1 billion debt retirement, leaving approximately $1.6 billion of debt on its balance sheet.

Fort Worth, Texas -- Calloway’s Nursery has named Alicia Hicks as VP marketing, effective Aug. 5. Hicks formerly served as Calloway's director of retail marketing.

With her promotion, Hicks will oversee marketing for all aspects of Calloway's Nursery, which includes 17 Calloway's Nursery locations in Dallas/Fort Worth, as well as two Cornelius Nursery locations in Houston. She will develop strategic marketing plans and customer experience initiatives for both Calloway's and Cornelius brands across all retail locations.

Three executives were named to new roles at leading appliance and consumer electronics manufacturer Haier America.

Haier America, part of the $29 billion Haier Group, named Gina Copeland SVP of air quality, Sanjay Gupta VP of product platform development for major appliances and Paul Riley as VP of sales and marketing for major appliances.

RuMe, an earth friendly lifestyle brand, has appointed Farhan Yasin to its board of directors. Yasin joins RuMe's board to provide strategic guidance on the company's continued innovation and expansion within e-commerce, business operations and managing its rapid growth.

Young America (YA), a leading multichannel marketing promotions company, has named two of its executives to industry board and councils.