News

NEW YORK — Nickelodeon has promoted Pamela Kaufman to the expanded role of CMO and president of the company’s consumer products. She will report to Cyma Zarghami, president of Nickelodeon Group.  

In her new role, Kaufman will oversee Nickelodeon's domestic consumer products business, encompassing merchandising and licensing for properties which include SpongeBob SquarePants, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Dora the Explorer.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — O’Reilly Automotive achieved a record quarterly gross margin of 50.8% for the second quarter ended June 30, primarily driven by improvements in acquisition costs, product mix and pricing management, according to president and CEO Greg Henslee.

The automotive aftermarket industry retailer saw sales for the quarter rise to $1.71 billion, a 10% increase from $1.56 billion for the same period one year ago. Gross profit for the second quarter was $872 million, a 12% increase from $780 million for the same period one year ago. 

WTI expects that retail August 2013 will be the coolest in four years for the nation as a whole. Temperatures will trend cooler than last year in parts of the Northeast and in the western half of the nation, while temperatures will trend warmer in the Southeast and Ohio Valley. The Plains states and Rocky Mountains will see increased precipitation this year, while the Southwest and Southeast will trend drier than last year. August is expected to be another active month for tropical systems, especially during the latter part of the month.

HERSHEY, Pa. — Core brand growth and new products in U.S. and key international markets bolstered Hershey Company’s second quarter results for the period ended June 30. The company reported consolidated net sales of $1.5 billion for the quarter, a 6.7% increase from $1.4 billion for same quarter a year ago.

Hershey’s reported net income for the quarter was $159 million or $0.70 per share-diluted, compared with $135 million or $0.59 per share-diluted for the comparable period of 2012.

Increased fulfillment costs and other expense pressures caused Amazon.com to report a second quarter loss of $7 million even though sales increased 22% to $15.7 billion.

The company said its sales would have increased 25% were it not for a $392 million headwind related to unfavorable foreign exchange rates. The net loss of $7 million, or two cents a share, was a reversal from the same period the prior year when a profit of $7 million, or one cent a share, was reported.

New York -- Walmart’s Silccon Valley hub, called @WalmartLabs, announced on Wednesday it has acquired Torbit, a cloud-based website acceleration company.

Walmart described Torbit as a “front-end optimization innovator that has been focused on making the web a faster and better place.” Torbit is known for developing measurement, analytics and performance improvement tools to help companies identify and enhance their overall site performance.

By Greg Miller, CrossCom National

When an IT Manager at a retail company proposes to replace outdated technologies because of escalating maintenance costs, his Director may say, “Sorry, I need you to squeeze another year out of the system.”

But it’s not that easy.

The IT Manager doesn’t maintain an inventory of spare parts for the event of hardware failure. If a component needs replacement, he must buy a new one, or source from an aftermarket where prices are high and quality is suspect.

Eden Prairie, Minn. -- Supervalu has named Bruce Besanko as the company’s executive VP and CFO, effective Aug. 7. Besanko joins Supervalu after serving as executive VP of finance, CFO and CAO for OfficeMax since 2009.

Brampton, Ontario -- Loblaw Companies Limited reported higher earnings and revenue in the second quarter of fiscal 2013 as compared to the same period in fiscal 2012. Lolbaw’s net earnings for the quarter totaled USD $173.2 million, up 14% from $151.8 million.

The retailer reported revenues of $7.31 billion, a 2% increase from $7.18 billion a year earlier. Same-store sales improved 1.1%.

Houston – The Men’s Wearhouse, Inc. has reached an agreement to repurchase $100 million worth of common stock from JPMorgan Chase Bank, NA under an accelerated share repurchase program. The retailer will buy the shares as part of an ongoing $200 million share repurchase program announced in March of this year. Men’s Wearhouse expects to close the transaction by the end of fourth quarter 2013.