News

Seattle – Nordstrom Inc. is making it easier for its customers to shop on Instagram. The retailer has become the first company to launch the Like2Buy platform, which is designed to enable a more seamless shopping experience for customers on Instagram.  Like2Buy allows Nordstrom.com customers to directly purchase items featured on the retailer’s Instagram page.

Los Angeles -- Brentwood Associates, a consumer-focused private equity investment firm, has acquired Marshall Retail Group, a leading specialty retailer for high-foot-traffic marketplaces with locations in major casino-hotels and airports across the United States. The company is led by CEO Michael C. Wilkins, who will continue to lead the business going forward.

Minneapolis -- Best Buy Co. earned $146 million in the second quarter, down from $266 million in the year-ago period, topping analysts earnings estimates even as its revenue fell short. Its results were helped by ongoing cost reductions. Best Buy cut $40 million in annual costs last quarter, bringing the total to $900 million.

For the quarter ended Aug. 3, revenue dropped to $8.89 billion from $9.27 billion. Analysts had expected $8.99 billion. Same-store sales fell 2.7%, which was more than analysts had expected.

Necessity is the predominant motivation behind shoe purchasing for men, and their brand loyalty is strong and steady, according to Men’s Footwear Brand Focus Study 2014, the latest report from global information provider, The NPD Group.

This attitude, however, shows signs of evolving, given that men are increasingly embracing fashion and newness in their footwear.

Menlo Park, Calif. – Women’s online shopping marketplace Poshmark is launching PoshMatch, a social merchandising engine that combines community curation and algorithmic technology to match shoppers to merchandise based on their social activity in the app. With PoshMatch, each shopper is greeted with their own real-time storefront built from their personal fashion shopping network and their style preferences.

Columbia Sportswear is teaming up with the Dallas Cowboys in an apparel licensing partnership that will feature co-branded sportswear, outerwear and accessories for men, women and youth, with product available to the public starting in late spring 2015.

Atlanta – Customers of real estate management software provider Yardi can now have access to thousands of The Home Depot products either in store or online with a click of a button via the online procurement system offered with Yardi Procure to Pay, a fully automated end-to-end procurement and invoice processing platform.

Online sales at Best Buy grew 22% in the second quarter to $581 million, but that wasn’t enough to offset weak sales and traffic trends at physical stores or prevent the company from forecasting similar declines in the third and fourth quarters.