News

Unleashed by Petco is taking over the reins of the largest surfing dog competition in the United States. Fifty dogs are expected to participate in this year's Surf Dog competition, which will be held July 13 in Imperial Beach, Calif., adjacent to the pier.

Lowe’s hosted the competition for the past eight years. Unleashed by Petco is ready to take the helm and take things to “the next level.”

LeBron James has teamed up with Sprite to change the game off the court for four people via a social media contest.

Ace Hardware president and CEO John Venhuizen called the company’s first quarter the "best for both revenues and net income in its 90-year history," thanks to strong performance in its core categories.

The co-op reported total revenues of $1.1 billion for the first quarter, up 16.8% from the same quarter last year. Net income was $24.4 million, up from $4.4 million in the year-ago quarter.

New York – Maxymiser, a global provider of unified customer experience optimization, is partnering with digital analytics consultancy Pointmarc. The partnership leverages Maxymiser's testing, personalization and targeting tools with Pointmarc's optimization team in an effort to deliver enhanced online experiences for both Maxymiser and Pointmarc clients.

Alpharetta, Ga. – Three-quarters (74%) of businesses report that the time spent on social media has increased since last year, and 54% report that social spending has increased. According to a new study from Social Media Marketing University (SMMU), top social media expenditures include internal staff compensation (37%), social advertising (18%), external staff compensation (10%) and content (7%).

Other notable findings include:

• 60% report that content development requires the bulk of the time dedicated to social.

Those of us who’ve been around retail for a while remember the shutdown that brought West Coast port operations to a halt in the fall of 2002.

San Diego - While showrooming, the process of researching in-store before buying online, remains popular among 76% of consumers, the emerging trend of webrooming, or researching online before buying in-store, is even more common, representing 88% of shoppers. According to “The Rise of Webrooming: A Changing Consumer Landscape,” a report from Interactions, 75% of webroomers believe they can find the lowest in-store price, while 72% prefer online product comparisons and 71% prefer online product research.

The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf has appointed Karen Cate as CFO and Jeff Schroeder as VP of operations.

Cate was the VP, controller of Trader Joe's Company, where she was responsible for the integrity of financial processes and reporting for the retail grocery store, warehouses and distribution operations. She has also held financial management positions for Sun Microsystems, Nestlé USA and Avery Dennison Corporation.