News

ATLANTA — Newell Rubbermaid has appointed Jeremy Liebowitz as the company’s VP of global e-commerce, a newly created position. The company will look to Liebowitz to lead the acceleration of its online revenue growth worldwide.

NEW YORK — Cosmetic brand Clinique has promoted Jean-Christophe Jourde to the newly created position of SVP and GM of North America. Jourde will be responsible for driving sales and market share growth for the brand in the region and will report to Ricardo Quintero, SVP and global GM of market development. 

WAYNE, N.J. — Lingering cold weather and soft sales in its electronics and entertainment categories caused Toys”R”Us’ net and comparable store sales for first quarter ended May 4 to dip. 

The company reported net sales of $2.4 billion, a decrease of nearly 8% from $2.6 billion for the quarter a year ago. The decline in net sales for the quarter was primarily attributable to a decrease in comparable store net sales, as well as a foreign currency translation impact of $67 million. 

CINCINNATI — Bounty Select-A-Size has teamed up with the Cincinnati Reds as part of a promotional campaign. The company will have 40 Bounty Clean Crew members on hand at every Reds home game to help clean up messes around the park while touting the efficacy of its paper towels to baseball fans.

TROY, Mich. — PayAnywhere, a provider of mobile point of sale technology, has launched an upgraded version of its mPOS app for iOS and revamped its merchant portal PayAnywhere Inside.

The app is available for download from the Apple App Store and works with the PayAnywhere mobile credit card reader, which plugs into the audio jack of an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch device, so merchants of all sizes can accept credit and debit card payments directly from their phones or tablets.

NEW YORK — As part of its American Icons campaign, Macy’s will celebrate the 80th anniversary of the drive-in theater by providing customers with a free showing of “The Smurfs” in pop-up drive-ins at select Macy’s stores and existing drive-in theaters nationwide.

Home Depot has plans for a major hurricane preparedness initiative this year, but the program doesn’t begin until nearly two months after residents of storm prone areas should already have plans in place.

Hasbro will be developing toys and physical games based on the globally popular Angry Birds brand as part of its expanded licensing agreement with Rovio Entertainment. 

Hasbro will develop the upcoming game Angry Birds Go!, scheduled to release this year, and will continue to develop and expand the collaboration with Angry Birds Star Wars from Rovio Entertainment and LucasFilm.

STAMFORD, Conn. — With the housing market rebounding and home improvement on the upswing, GE Capital Retail Bank is looking to help contractors with a new business-building program called “Think Outside the Toolbox.”

Former Mexican president Felipe Calderón will be one of the key note speakers this fall when the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals gathers in Denver for the organization’s annual global conference.