News

A strong spring painting season drove a near 10% increase in same store sales at Sherwin-Williams and fueled record sales and profits for the operator of 4,100 stores.

The company’s total sales increased 12.1% to slightly more than $3 billion due primarily to higher sales in the company paint stores group. Acquisitions were said to have increased net sales by 4.6%. Profits grew at an even faster pace, with earnings per share increasing 19.5% to $2.94 from $2.46.

San Jose, Calif. -- EBay Inc. on Wednesday reported that its second quarter earnings rose 5.6%, topping analysts' expectations.

The company posted $676 million in net income, up from $640 million in the same quarter a year ago.

Revenue rose 13% to $4.37 billion from $3.88 billion in the same quarter a year ago.
 

San Francisco -- Search ad spend increased 25% year-over-year and 2% quarter-over-quarter, according to Kenshoo, a leader in predictive media optimization technology.

Among the key findings in the research:

• Search click-through rate increased 26%, driving a 15% increase in clicks year-over-year;

• Social ad spend increased 51% year-over-year and 21% quarter-over-quarter; and

• Social impressions increased 13% year-over-year.

Dallas -- J.C. Penney Company announced the launch of a new back-to-school marketing campaign that celebrates self-expression, showing how the perfect fit inspires kids to stand out and feel one-of-a-kind. The campaign kicks off today with two television spots, "Stand Out" and "My Fit," as well as a Hispanic marketing spot.

Hayward, Calif. - Effective immediately, all new Posiflex XT4015 folding touch terminals will ship at no extra cost with projected capacitive screens, rather than resistive touch. This new projected capacitive touch screen change provides enhanced performance.

San Francisco -- Visa is launching a new service, Visa Checkout that enables consumers throughout the United States, Canada and Australia to pay for goods online, on any device, with just a few clicks.

New York -- At first glance, the IBM-Apple partnership may seem to do little more than formalize a connection between two technologies that are mainstays of most retailers’ infrastructures. The fact is many retailers already use Apple iPhones and iPads as devices for in-store activities like product lookup, checkout and inventory management. And IBM is a leading provider of retail data analytics technology.
 

Washington, D.C. – The National Retail Federation (NRF) is supporting the Marketplace and Internet Tax Freedom Act. The legislation was introduced by Senators Michael Enzi, Richard Durbin, Lamar Alexander, Heidi Heitkamp, Susan Collins and Mark Pryor.

Amarillo, Texas – Parent, a company owned by New Jersey-based licensing and memorabilia mogul Joel Weinshanker, has purchased multimedia entertainment retailer Hastings Entertainment for $21.4 million. The publicly traded Hastings will go private and operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Parent.

New York - Empire State Realty Trust, Inc. (ESRT), a New York-based real estate investment trust, has completed the acquisition of the ground and operating leases at 112 West 34th Street and the ground lease at 1400 Broadway for a total of approximately $734 million in cash, common stock and operating partnership units. 112 West 34th Street is a 26-story, 650,769-rentable-sq.-ft.office tower, with 92,455-sq.-ft. of retail space located in the 34th Street/Penn Station submarket.