News

Crossmark, a leading sales and marketing services company, has elevated president and COO Ben Fischer to the CEO spot, effective April 7. He will succeed Joe Crafton, who is retiring after 26 years of service with the company.

Minneapolis -- The distribution of digital coupons on retailers’ websites exploded in 2013, increasing 39.5% over the previous year, according to data released by Marx, a Kantar Media company. The growth of digital coupons was followed by a 25.6% increase in retailer participation in freestanding insert (FSI) coupon promotion pages, and a 12.6% increase in total retailer feature ad pages distributed.

As the retail industry begins to offer shoppers the omnichannel experience they demand, brick-and-mortar stores have never been more important.

This is especially true as it relates to power centers, broadly defined as open-air shopping centers that feature multiple national anchors such as discount department stores, off-price stores, warehouse clubs and other retailers that tend to offer a wide selection in a particular merchandise category at value prices.

I Love Velvet, a leading provider of end-to-end, secure, mobile point-of-sale (mPOS) solutions, is now a member of the Samsung Solutions Exchange. The Samsung Solutions Exchange addresses the needs of line of business owners by creating holistic mobile solutions on a robust portfolio of enterprise-grade Samsung Mobile devices.

Coupled with Samsung Mobile devices, the I Love Velvet mobile point-of-sale solution offers three major components: Velvet mPOS hardware, Velvet store and Velvet cloud.

Attica, Ohio -- Affiliate marketer WP Marketing LLC, has opened a new online shopping mall at myextremedeals.com/pine8734. As an affiliate marketing company, WP Marketing does not warehouse or sell products, but instead researches them on the online shoppers' behalf.  

Oracle Industry Connect starts today, and promises to bring retailers two full days of their peers providing in-depth insight into the latest trends and pain points facing retail technology professionals. The event, being held at the Marriott Copley Place, Boston, Mass., offers a stellar lineup of speakers, including Jeff Hamm, director of e-commerce at Ulta Beauty, who will speak about improving customer experience at home and on the go with Oracle Commerce. Paul McFarren, CIO of C Wonder, will discuss supporting global growth with a unique deployment of Oracle Retail Merchandising.

Actress Sofia Vergara is launching her first scent, called Sofia by Sofia Vergara. The fragrance makes its debut exclusively with Home Shopping Network (HSN) at 12:01 a.m. April 24 and in key markets internationally, and rolls out to retailers nationwide in September.  

"Sofia by Sofia Vergara is designed for the woman who wants to feel irresistible and truly enjoys being a woman," said Vergara. "I wanted to bring a little bit of who I am, my ethnicity and create a fragrance that is a true reflection of me."
 

New York -- J. Crew Group Inc. reported a 42% decrease in its fiscal fourth-quarter profit amid higher costs. Net income fell to $5.92 million in the quarter, which ended Feb. 1., down from $10.2 million in the year-ago period.

Revenue increased 6.7% to $686.2 million. Retail store sales rose 5% to $438.6 million and direct sales jumped 10% to $238.1 million

Same-store sales, which includes direct sales, rose 3%. Excluding a calendar shift, comparable-store sales increased 4%.