News

Atlanta — Consumer spending in the United States grew 4.2% year-over-year in May 2014, compared to April’s 4.1% year-over-year growth. According to Spend Trend analysis from First Data Corp., spending growth was driven by May’s warm weather, which specifically spurred spending on travel and home improvement.

Chicago — Retail category planning solutions provider Galleria has entered a partnership with Displaydata, a provider of digital display solutions.

The partnership is intended to create a solution that will reduce operational costs while still enabling the delivery of a customer-centric in-store experience, by connecting electronic shelf label (ESL) technology from Displaydata with category management solutions from Galleria.

Kohl’s has further endeared itself to residents of America’s Dairyland with a sizable donation to the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin.

The maker of DNA Energy Drink is eating its words after incorrectly announcing a distribution agreement between DNA Brands and Trenton Coca-Cola on Monday.

DNA’s president and CEO, Eric Fowler, said Wednesday that the announcement from earlier this week was incorrect and that there was no agreement for distribution between the bottling company and DNA. The announcement also quoted Chuck Jones, citing him as president of the bottling company even though he is not.

Irvine, Calif. — PriceSpider, an online retail marketing service provider, is rolling out a re-pricing engine that enables manufacturers and resellers to automatically adjust pricing based on preset or on-the-fly criteria as it pertains to competitive market activity. The PriceSpider re-pricing engine provides the actionable data needed to set rules, manage strategy and optimize pricing activity with visibility into the market.

With an 8.7% same store sales increase, the addition of 21 new stores, a burgeoning digital business and surging first quarter profits, Ulta Beauty demonstrated why it is one of the retail industry’s most compelling growth stories.

Deerfield, Ill. — Market6, a provider of Web-based retail analytic applications, is introducing Market6 Vantage, a suite of retail analytic applications that automate and simplify joint business planning and retailer/supplier collaboration. Vantage is designed to enable retailers and their suppliers to streamline their collaboration efforts to build and execute more effective and profitable shopper-centric merchandising plans.

Crowdsourced same-day delivery service provider Deliv has joined IBM’s Ready for Smarter Commerce program in a move that creates new opportunities for other program partners.