News

New York – Specialty retailer Aerie, a subsidiary of American Eagle Outfitters, is capitalizing on the “selfie” craze in its newest promotion. The company has created what it calls the world's largest unretouched selfie and photo shoot as part of its #AerieREAL “Love Your Real Selfie” promotion.

San Jose, Calif. – PayPal has reportedly purchased CyActive, an Israel-based provider of predictive cybersecurity technology, for $60 million. According to Israeli media outlet Globes, CyActive uses an algorithm based on biology to forecast cyberthreats.

By Brendan O’Brien, Aria Systems

You’ve undoubtedly heard about the Internet of Things (IoT) and you might think that it’s all about wearables and energy savings. You might conclude that it doesn’t have much to do with your retail business.

Well think again.

The business impact on the retail sector from the IoT – the monitoring, measuring and reporting of all kinds of interconnected devices – is going to be huge. Bigger than anything we’ve seen before in technology.

Who needs Family Dollar? After a failed bid to acquire its smaller rival, Dollar General is on the move and extending its presence to three new states.

Ross Stores is less than two months into its new fiscal year and already the company is halfway home on its 2015 new store growth plan and asserting its long term potential.

Ross confirmed that since the beginning of its fiscal year on Feb. 1, it opened 32 Ross Dress for Less stores and five dd’s Discounts stores in 15 states.

The company’s full year plan disclosed when fourth quarter results were released on Feb. 26, calls for 70 Ross stores and 20 dd’s Discounts stores.

The biggest news at the International Home and Housewares Show didn’t involve a new product introduction, but rather an information sharing arrangement between The NPD Group and Nielsen that will help retailers and supplier make sense of the market.

PetSmart’s investors have officially approved a buyout of the company by a private equity firm, setting up a payout to stockholders of $83 per share.

In December, PetSmart announced it accepted a bid on the company for $8.7 billion. The company expects the transaction to close on March 11. The buyout means PetSmart will become a private company.

Loblaw is already Canada’s largest retailer and it plans to stay that way by spending more than $1 billion this year on new stores, e-commerce expansion and supply chain improvements.

As Canada's largest network of corporate and independently owned retail stores and formats, each employing between 20 and 300 employees, Loblaw's investment is expected to create more than 20,000 jobs through store staffing and construction.

Before Barnes & Noble Inc. spins off its Education division later this year, it is expanding the business by investing in a website where students buy and sell their notes from class. (Correction: An earlier version of this story stated that Barnes & Noble was buying Flashnotes.com.)

Barnes & Noble and Flashnotes.com will also enter into a strategic alliance agreement that will enable Barnes & Noble Colege to promote Flashnotes at partner schools and on digital platforms.

Fans of Cinderella will have a chance to write their own happily-ever-after with a new digital marketing campaign from Zales Jewelers.

As part of Zales’ promotion of Disney’s new “Cinderella” movie (out this month), Zales is inviting Cinderella fans to upload a photo with their prince charming to its website (www.zales.com/Cinderella) or on Instagram using the hashtag #ZalesCinderellaPromo. Through a sweepstakes drawing, a grand prize winner will be selected to receive a $10,000 Zales gift card. A first runner up will receive a $1,000 Zales gift card.