News

Neil Marshall, global director of quality and food safety with the Coca-Cola Company is the newest member of the Consumer Goods Forum’s Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI).

Marshall replaces fellow Coca-Cola colleague D.V. Darshane who recent took a new position with Coca-Cola in Europe.

The Von Maur department store chain was founded 140 years ago and less than a month from now the company will open its 27th store in Coralville, Iowa.
 
The 80,000-sq.-ft. freestanding store will be located at the Iowa River Landing retail development and feature the company’s signature exterior entrance and resident ambience.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A 36th birthday is not normally an occasion for an over-the-top celebration; however, that’s what multichannel retailer HSN is doing this month when it hosts what it’s calling the biggest party of the year.

To celebrate its 36 years, HSN has partnered with Toyota to give away four 2013 Toyota RAV4s in July as part of a month-long sweepstakes. Each week, customers can sign up via the HSN Arcade gaming portal at HSN.com and one winner will be announced on HSN every Saturday night at 8 p.m. EDT.

Every week, retailers unleash significant advertising and promotion efforts in the perpetual competition to engage shoppers, drive trips and grow sales. Annual retail sales and market share are the result of the competition that played out in the preceding 52 individual weeks, and many companies highly value “winning the week.” But some weeks can be much more competitive than others, creating challenges for retailers also facing strong pressures to be efficient and limit costs.

Having past the calendar’s mid-point, we thought it would be interesting to take a look at the most viewed stories of the year to date on ChainStoreAge.com. (Based on the results,  the ongoing saga of J.C. Penney remains the industry's biggest story.) Here are the Top 10 stories of the first six months:

By Chuck Hundley, [email protected]

Long Beach, N.Y. – For five-store women’s specialty retailer Ooh La La Boutiques, maintaining strong customer awareness is critical for successfully competing with larger, more established brands in its crowded vertical. Add in the impact of Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath on this chain which is located in and around Long Island, and you have a business in need of personal connection with its customers.

Los Gatos, Calif. – Crocs will implement Centric Software’s product lifecycle management software. Crocs will implement the full Centric 8 PLM suite to manage its product development process, including concept, design and sourcing.

The company will implement the Centric system on a worldwide basis to hundreds of users, including Crocs suppliers and partners. Crocs will integrate Centric 8 with its SAP enterprise software, according to Dale Bathum, Crocs’ chief product officer.

Brooklyn, Ohio – The Weiss family, which founded the public American Greetings greeting card company is now looking to take it private. As reported by Reuters, the Weiss family is raising an existing buyout offer of $18.20 per share to $19 per share.

The increased offer was contained in a regulatory filing made July 1.
 

GLENDALE, Calif. — Nestlé Butterfinger and Twentieth Century Fox Consumer Products have announced that Bart Simpson has officially been reunited with the Butterfinger candy bar.