News

Plano, Texas – J.C. Penney Company Inc. is raising capital by selling $350 million worth of senior notes due in 2019. The proceeds will mostly be used by pay off fees and expenses related to previous senior notes offering coming due in 2015, 2016 and 2017.

ECRM compared retail circular advertising in August 2013 versus August 2014 and noted trends occurring across top retail chains. Back-to-school season was in full swing, yet the drug retailers took opposite approaches to their promotions. Walgreens featured multiple BTS promotions on each of its front pages both this year and last. On the other hand, CVS’s front pages did not feature any traditional school/office supplies, instead focusing on the cosmetics category in three of its four August 2014 circulars.

New York -- Braintree, PayPal’s payments processor subsidiary, will let its merchants start accepting Bitcoin over the coming months. The news was announced on Monday at a technology conference in San Francisco.

The move would allow websites and apps that run payments through Braintree to accept bitcoin as a payment method. But there was no news of how many, if any, of Braintree’s customers, which include Uber, will decide to accept the virtual currency.

Saks Fifth Avenue is launching a new user-generated content hub on its e-commerce site. Called #SaksStyle and based on the Curalate Fanreel image integration platform, #SaksStyle allows customers to display photos from Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr in a social shopping environment.

Here are three reasons to like (and very possibly emulate) what Saks is doing with its latest social venture.

Eden Prairie, Minn. - ShopHQ, a multichannel electronic retailer, has selected Manhattan’s Warehouse Management System (WMS) to help the company increase throughput and capacity of its distribution and fulfillment operations. The software deployment is part of an expansion of the company’s Bowling Green, Kentucky-based distribution center, which will more than double in size from 260,000 sq. ft. to 600,000 sq. ft. by the end of 2015.

Deerfield, Ill. - Walgreens has named Barry Rosenstein, founder and managing partner of New York City-based hedge fund Jana Partners LLC, to its board of directors. The company is expanding its board it continues moving forward to complete its merger with Alliance Boots GmbH.

Electrolux has entered into an agreement to acquire the appliances business of General Electric, one of the leading manufacturers of kitchen and laundry products in the United States, for a cash consideration of $3.3 billion.

Austin, Texas - Whole Foods Market and one-hour grocery delivery service Instacart are launching a new partnership that enables customers to have Whole Foods Market products delivered in as little as one hour. Customers will soon also have the option to place orders via Instacart and pick up their order at a local Whole Foods Market store.