News

Teen retailer Hot Topic is using the appeal of the pre-order and a Disney film tailor made for its core customers to encourage full margin sales and drive traffic to HotTopic.com.

The retailer is featuring a limited edition collection of apparel inspired by Disney’s dark anti-hero “Maleficent,” on its Web site for pre-order beginning April 15. Merchandise will be available in stores and online in May with prices ranging from $29.50 to $54.50.

New York -- March was a so-so month for retailers, whose performance was impacted by unspring-like, cold temperatures in many parts of the country and a late Easter. (Easter falls on April 20 this year as opposed to March 31 last year.)

The eight retailers tracked by Thomson Reuters posted a 2.2% increase in March same-store sales, better than the expected 1.4% increase.

Fort Worth, Texas – Snowstorms that affected as many as two-thirds of the selling days in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014 in some key markets dampened financial performance at Pier 1 Imports Inc.

Compared to the same period the prior year, net income fell 31% to $42.6 million from $61.7 million. Total sales fell 6% to $515.8 million from $551.6 million and same-store sales dropped 4.6%.

Armonk, N.Y. -- IBM Corp. announced it will acquire digital marketing technology provider Silverpop. The Atlanta-based Silverpop allows marketers to target highly personalized offers and promotions. IBM said the technology will enhance its enterprise marketing capabilities.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

San Francisco -- Zynga Inc. named former Best Buy executive David Lee as CFO, effective April 14, as the online games company and creator of “Farmville” seeks to return to growth. He will replace current CFO Mark Vranesh who has decided to leave the company.

Lee was previously the senior VP of corporate finance, treasury, mergers and acquisitions and corporate strategy at Best Buy.

Union, N.J. – Bed, Bath & Beyond met Wall Street expectations with falling net earnings during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2013. Compared to the same period a year earlier, net earnings dropped 11% to $333.3 million, from $373.87 million.

Net sales fell 6% to $3.2 billion, from $3.4 billion. In one bright spot, same-store sales rose 1.7%. Bed, Bath & Beyond attributed some of its net earnings decline to disruptive weather in the fourth quarter.

Colorado Springs, Colo. – Acellos is integrating its Prophesy Dispatch TMS (transportation management system) productnwith MacroPoint, a service that provides location tracking for brokered loads. The integrated solution provides transportation brokers with a way to automatically track loads including arrival, departure from stops and GPS position updates.   

Southfield, Mich. -- Kris Abrahamson has been named as VP retail consultancy of shopper marketing agency The Mars Agency. Abrahamson has more than 20 years experience in the consumer packaged goods industry and was most recently the senior director of innovation with PepsiCo's Global Nutrition Group.

As part of the retail consultancy group, she will drive strategic growth initiatives against The Mars Agency's clients' key retailers and lead innovation initiatives that will address evolving shopping behaviors affecting retailers today and in the future.

Chicago – TableSavvy, a real-time, last-minute dining reservation system, is launching its first-ever mobile app for iPhone users. Chicagoland restaurants can post last-minute available tables through TableSavvy's online platform.

For a $5 service fee, spontaneous diners can reserve these last-minute tables and receive a 30% discount off their meal through booking reservations online or via the new app.

New York -- Increasing tax burdens (76%) are the top concern of retail CEOs, according to PwC’s 17th Annual Global CEO Survey. Worries about the tax burden were followed by the government response to the fiscal deficit and debt burden (74%), over-regulation (69%), the high and volatile prices of raw materials (68%), and exchange rate volatility (64%).