News

FORT WORTH, Texas — RadioShack posted first quarter 2013 quarter sales of $849 million and a loss of $43 million, compared with $913 million last year and a loss of $8 million.

As a result of the company’s disappointing first quarter, it has ended its mobile phone partnership with Target. RadioShack said it had stopped operating its Target Mobile centers before the end of last month. The company had operated mobile phone kiosks inside Target stores. 

Bentonville, Ark. -- For the first time in the retailer’s history, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said that, through Walmart and the Walmart Foundation, it has given more than $1 billion in cash and in-kind contributions.

The Monday announcement makes Walmart the first U.S. retailer to achieve the $1 billion in giving mark, up from $872.7 million last year. The growth in global giving was largely due to increased in-kind donations in the U.S. to local food banks and families impacted by disasters.

New York -- A Monday report by Forbes said that former Office Depot COO Mark Begelman has been charged with profiting off confidential information.

The SEC leveed insider trading charges against Begelman for allegedly using confidential information for his own gain, concerning the upcoming acquisition of Bluegreen Corp. by BFC Financial Corp.

Chicago -- Information Resources (IRI), the exclusive provider of Costco point-of-sale and inventory information to the manufacturer community, and Costco Wholesale announced several enhancements to their Costco Collaborative Retail Exchange (CRX) program, a single, global solution for category, POS and supply chain tracking at Costco, and the launch of Costco CRX Mexico.

New York -- Investment firm Starboard Value, Office Depot’s largest stockholder with a 14.8% stake, revealed Monday it has delivered a letter to the office supply retailer’s board of directors, expressing “strong disappointment at the board's failure to work constructively with Starboard to reconstitute the board.”

In March, Starboard nominated six candidates, including former Home Depot chief Robert Nardelli – to Office Depot’s board in an effort to strengthen the company’s direction.

Hong Kong -- The Asia arm of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Monday it has achieved energy savings of 20% across 210 supplier factories in China.

According to Walmart Asia president and CEO Scott Price, the factories have “cut their energy consumption by a minimum of 20% as of December 2012, saving approximately 2.168 billion kWh, a number equivalent to powering 1.46 million homes for an entire year."

Montreal -- Jesta I.S. said Monday that Body Central Corp. has selected Jesta I.S.’ Vision Suite to support its strategy of moving to a complete omni-channel environment.

Body Central will utilize the Vision Suite to power its enterprise with one unified solution, streamlining retail operation processes and providing Body Central with breakdowns on products and simplified strategies via refined business intelligence data.

By Nish Bhalla, [email protected]

It’s hard to think of a company, retail or otherwise, that isn’t developing a mobile app these days — but the vast majority of apps are riddled with security flaws that could jeopardize the end-user and expose the company to high costs and embarrassment.

Quincy, Mass. -- Ahold USA and its Stop & Shop banner have donated half a million dollars to a charitable organization set up to aid victims of the recent terrorist attacks in Boston.

The company announced the donation of $500,000 to The One Fund Boston, formed by Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino.

"Words cannot express the tragedy that took place at the Boston Marathon," Stop & Shop New England Division president Joe Kelley said. "We mourn with all of those who were affected."

NEW YORK — Macy’s is turning to its customers for its next commercial, the retailer’s first national crowd-sourced spot created in celebration of America by Americans.