News

With just a few days until the San Diego Comic-Con kicks off, Hasbro has announced the expansion of its Kre-O construction brand to include Dungeons & Dragons, the iconic fantasy entertainment brand from Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro. 

WOONSOCKET, R.I. — CVS employees cleaned up nearly 25,000 pounds of trash from shorelines across the country in partnership with Ocean Conservancy, a leading organization that educates and empowers citizens to take action on behalf of the ocean. 

The CVS Caremark Shoreline Cleanup, a national environmental employee engagement campaign, raises awareness of the connection between clean waterways and health. 

Hilton Head Island, S.C. -- Shelter Cove Towne Centre, an outdoor mall now under construction, has taken a bold step to engage the surrounding Hilton Head Island community — both residents and visitors. It has set up shop on a crowd-sourcing website called Popularise and asked Hilton Head residents to suggest tenants for the 290,000-sq.-ft. property.

Huntington Beach, Calif. -- Retailers are eying mobile devices as the best route to make the most of their digital marketing campaigns.

According to the latest research by Shop.org/Forrester, in the study “The State Of Retailing Online 2013: Marketing & Merchandising,” 87% of online retailers either already have implemented or are planning to implement mobile email optimization in 2013, and seven in 10 will optimize paid search for smartphones and tablets (71% and 73%, respectively).

Los Gatos, Calif. -- French manufacturer, distributor and retailer of high-end women’s lingerie and ready-to-wear apparel Aubade has selected Centric Software as its product lifecycle management (PLM) software provider.

Eagan, Minn. -- Steak buffet chain Buffets Inc. said that it has appointed Keith Kravcik as its CFO. The company also created a new position – director, office of the CEO and corporate administration – and promoted Jackie Fiebelkorn to the slot.

Kravcik will be responsible for all finance, accounting, purchasing and IT functions as well as continuing to strengthen the back office services organization. Fiebelkorn will lead the office for the CEO and oversee administrators throughout the organization.  

By Victor Wulc, [email protected]

There has been a recent trend in retail of new dynamic store formats that make the physical store experience more closely mirror the virtual store experience. Examples include Staples “omni-channel” stores that feature kiosks offering access to Staples’ full product inventory and RadioShack’s new concept store in Manhattan that includes interactive product fixtures such as display speakers that customers can test with music from their own personal devices.

New York -- Two-thirds of gas and convenience mobiles searches use mobile devices exclusively, according to survey results by xAd/Telmetrics.

The 2013 U.S. Mobile Path-to-Purchase Study, conducted by Nielsen, revealed that 85% of search time in the gas and convenience category is spent on a smartphone, with most conducting gas price comparisons/searches.

The category also offers one of the highest mobile conversion rates — nearly 90% — as most mobile users who search for these services are ultimately making a purchase.

San Francisco – Gap Inc. substantially improved upon its June 2012 same-store sales performance and beat analyst expectation with a 7% increase in same-store sales last month. In comparison, the retailer’s same-store sales were flat in June of last year and were only expected to rise 4.7% in June of this year, according to estimates from Retail Metrics.

Sales at Gap’s Old Navy helped drive the overall increase. Same-store sales at Old Navy rose 13% in June as a result of seasonal summer promotions.