News

New York -- With a late Thanksgiving and the shortest holiday shopping season in years, consumers report they are starting their holiday shopping sooner and spending more this year, according to the latest American Express Spending & Saving Tracker research. The report is more optimistic than some other holiday forecasts.

Cheshire, Conn. -- Macy's and Bloom Energy announced that an innovative clean electricity generation system has been installed at Macy’s online fulfillment center in Cheshire, Conn. The servers, from Bloom Energy, use an advanced solid oxide fuel cell technology to produce electricity on-site.

Boca Raton, Fla. -- Office Depot, in partnership with TriplePundit and CSRwire, will convene a “Twitter Chat” on environmental transparency on Oct. 24, from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. EST.

The chat will be hosted by Yalmaz Siddiqui, senior director of environmental strategy at Office Depot. To register, send the following tweet: Join me for the #transparency chat with @officedepot @yalmazsiddiqui @triplepundit @csrwire on Oct. 24.

Fort Worth, Texas -- Pier 1 Imports announced that its board of directors has authorized a new $200 million share repurchase program.

The new share repurchase program is effective immediately and authorizes the repurchase of up to $200 million of the company’s common stock in open market or private transactions. As of October 17, 2013, Pier I had approximately 103.8 million shares of common stock outstanding.
 

By Sreekanth Kannan, Senior Marketing Manager, Aerohive Networks

Specialty beverage retailer BevMo! has appointed former Safeway executive Douglas J. Ratto as the company's EVP, chief merchant. Ratto will lead the buying, planning, allocations and distribution teams at BevMo!

Kraft Foods Group has selected Becknell Industrial to develop and build a new warehouse to support its existing facility in Champaign, Ill. The 730,000-sq.-ft. warehouse will be located on a 35-acre parcel adjacent to its manufacturing site, which is Kraft's largest production facility in North America.

Under Armour has opened its first retail theater specialty store at the Jing An Kerry Centre in Shanghai, China. The store features a multi-dimensional short film that depicts athletes who use the brand.

Founder and CEO Kevin Plank and Under Armour athlete Michael Phelps were on hand to host the grand opening event.

Hibbett Sports has put its succession plan into motion. Effective Feb. 2, 2014, Mickey Newsome will go from executive chairman of the board and CEO to non-executive chairman. Additionally, president and CEO Jeff Rosenthal has been appointed to the board, bringing the total number of members 10.

Driving sales with an established brand at multiple retail accounts is hard enough for the biggest consumer packaged goods companies. Creating a new brand in a nonexistent category is even more daunting as a pair of entrepreneurial family members discovered a decade ago when they launched the Granite Gold line of stone-care products. This is their story.

Two stone guys with no experience in consumer package goods or retail set out to conquer the world by trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.