News

CARY, N.C. — The Pantry, a leading independently operated convenience store chain in the southeastern U.S., has appointed former Dollar General executive Kathleen Guion to its board of directors.

DALLAS — Kimberly-Clark will award college scholarships totaling $1.26 million to 63 children of K-C employees across 17 states and Canada as part of its Bright Futures program.

Bright Futures scholarship grants are worth up to $20,000, or $5,000 per school year, for full-time students attending accredited colleges and universities. Since its inception, the program has awarded more than $35 million in scholarships to more than 1,800 students.

BOUCHERVILLE, Quebec — Canadian hardware retailer and one-time Lowe’s buyout prospect Rona has appointed Alain Brisebois the company’s new EVP and chief commercial officer.

Brisebois will seek to improve operational efficiency and synergy among the company's purchasing, merchandising, procurement and marketing activities.

PLEASANTON, Calif. — Safeway’s Lucerne brand cow is the face of the company’s eighth annual Lucerne: The Art of Dairy art contest. Safeway chose nine student finalists whose life-size fiberglass cows stand to win one of them a $30,000 grand prize.

NEW YORK — The world’s largest retailers have been scaling back their global expansion activities, particularly in Asia, and turning their attention inward by integrating operations and strengthening their store, Internet and mobile sales channels, according to a new report by Accenture. 

OMAHA, Neb. — Hayneedle, a leading online home furnishings retailer in the United States, will begin offering special, curated sales events from its independent flash sale site, the Foundary, at hayneedle.com starting May 6.

New York -- Sally Beauty Holdings Inc.’s second-quarter earnings decreased 4.3% amid sluggish sales. The company earned $64.9 million in the quarter ended March 31, compared with $67.8 million in the year-ago period.

Revenue rose 1% to $898.2 million from $889.3 million in the year-ago period.

Same-store sales were down 0.8%.

Gary Winterhalter, chairman, president and CEO says that the quarter's performance reflected in part lower traffic fueled by two fewer days compared with the prior year quarter.

Toronto -- Canadian Tire Corp. announced that it will open the 'Canadian Tire Cloud Computing Centre' in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in the fall of 2013. The 28,000-sq.-ft. site will house a digital content warehouse, application lab, testing lab and high performance data centre. It will serve as the core digital hub for the Canadian Tire Family of Companies.

Austin, Texas -- The bond is growing stronger between retailers' marketing and IT departments, and investments and activity in marketing-related IT projects are on the rise, according to a new study from EKN. More than 60% of the survey respondents indicated that the number of IT projects focused on marketing initiatives will increase in 2013 over last year.
    

St. Louis -- Build-A-Bear Workshop reported increased net income and sales the first quarter of 2013 compared to the same quarter a year earlier, despite closing some stores. The retailer’s adjusted net income rose to $2.3 million, compared to an adjusted net loss of $500,000 in the first quarter of last year.

Consolidated net retail sales were $102.9 million with 24 fewer stores compared to $95.2 million in the first quarter of 2012, an increase of 8% excluding the impact of foreign exchange. Consolidated same-store sales increased 10.4%.