News

Fremont, Calif. -- The Men's Wearhouse has completed its acquisition of one-time-rival Jos. A. Bank Clothiers. The combined company has more than 1,700 stores, approximately 26,000 employees and sales of $3.5 billion on a pro forma basis.

The final price tag to combine the two retailers was $1.8 billion, or $65 per share.

Cincinnati -- Kroger Co. on Wednesday said it plans to withdraw from two multi-employer pension funds and will incur a charge of $56 million in the first quarter as it contributes that amount to restructure its pension obligations. The move is in line with the retailer’s desire to exert more control over employee-retirement programs.

By Jason Christoff, PE, LEED AP BD+C

The way business is executed within the retail construction industry may never be the same. The Great Recession is finally behind us, but it has changed how retailers deliver stores, as well as how architecture and engineering professionals design them. The A/E delivery model is constantly being reimagined to meet the needs of the changing market, but typically not as quickly or drastically as within the last five years.
 

Ann Arbor, Mich. – Pizza chains Pizza Hut and Papa John’s are tied for the highest customer satisfaction score among quick-service restaurants. According to the 2014 American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), Papa John’s (unchanged from 2013) and Pizza Hut (+3%) share the lead at 82, with Little Caesar (-2%) and Domino’s Pizza (-1%) not far behind at 80.

Armonk, N.Y. – Overall U.S. online retail sales for the week leading up to Father’s Day (June 9-15) were up more than 14% from the same period in 2013. According to the cloud-based IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark, Father's Day average order value was $119.37.

Washington, D.C. - The National Retail Federation (NRF) and the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) have asked an appeals court to overturn a federal judge’s approval of a lawsuit settlement regarding Visa and MasterCard’s credit card swipe fees, saying it was negotiated by only a handful of merchants and would do nothing to bring the fees under control.

Plano, Texas - Rent-A-Center Inc. has named Mike Case to VP marketing strategy and insights. Case is responsible for global administration of customer insights/market research, marketing analytics, business innovation, CRM and loyalty.

Recently, Case served as VP marketing and senior loyalty officer for La Quinta Inn & Suites Earlier in his career, Case held leadership positions in organizations such as American Airlines, Brierley & Partners, Sage Telecom, First USA Bank and Virgin America.

Irvine, Calif. - Baja Fresh is piloting a solution from Sparkfly that will allow it to launch promotions through Google Search, Facebook, Yelp, Opera Mediaworks and UberMedia, and assess the effectiveness of each individual channel with real-time redemption data. Leveraging the technology from the Sparkfly platform, the campaign includes information on basket size and individual items purchased.

Montreal - LightSpeed is launching Advanced Reporting for LightSpeed Cloud, which adds Big Data analytics to LightSpeed’s cloud-based POS system. The analytics capability is designed to give retailers real-time insight into sales, inventory trends and customer preferences.

LightSpeed’s new Advanced Reporting for Cloud includes more than 40 reports that give detailed information on product sales, profits and margins; customer preferences; employee performance; payment methods; and vendor-by-vendor analytics; across all stores and channels.

San Jose, Calif. - VeriFone Systems Inc. is making its Way2ride sound-based mobile app for smartphones available to taxi passengers in Philadelphia. Way2ride enables Philadelphia passengers to tap and pay for cab fares in 1,400 of the 1,600 taxi cabs currently operating in the city.