News

Restoration Hardware Holdings chairman and CEO Gary Friedman lauded the company’s performance in the fourth quarter and fiscal 2013, saying that RH continued to outperform the home furnishings industry by a wide margin.

Pleasanton, Calif. – Safeway Inc. on Friday said that no other bidders have emerged during the 21-day “go-shop” period following the announcement of its agreement to be acquired by AB Acquisition, the parent of Albertsons.

Under the definitive merger agreement, Safeway and its representatives were permitted to solicit and engage in negotiations with respect to alternative acquisition proposals during the 21-day period that ended on March 27 (the "go-shop" period).

PetSmart CEO David Lenhardt was joined by Lt. Governor Jim Cawley of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and Congressman Charlie Dent (PA-15) at the grand opening of PetSmart’s new distribution center (DC) in Berks County, Pa.

This DC will bring an estimated 500 jobs to Berks County by the end of 2016. The 870,000-sq.-ft. facility will serve 25% of PetSmart’s stores in 11 states, handling and delivering consumables, hard goods and fish to 170 PetSmart stores in 2014 and more than 260 stores by 2015.

Bentonville, Ark. – Wal-Mart Stores Inc. filed suit with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas suing Visa for $5 billion, alleging that the financial services company overcharges on the credit and debit card swipe fees it charges retailer.

The suit claims that Visa colluded with banks to fix swipe fees between January 2004 and November 2012, forcing it to raise prices and reduce customer service, resulting in lost retail sales.

Because it is a global company with five country-specific sites and plans to expand, Toms recently extended its initial six-month engagement with TAISTech for two additional years. TAISTech will provide ongoing maintenance and support for all of the Toms sites that currently use the Oracle Commerce ATG and Endeca platform.

TAISTech provides flexible ATG support plans through onshore, offshore or blended models. Toms selected the offshore model, which provides lower overall costs, coupled with high-quality, responsive solutions.
 

Bangalore, India – Mobile cloud platform company MobStac has added a new set of mobile commerce features that are capable of providing consumers with a universal shopping experience across all devices. The MobStac platform now provides an extension for all major commerce backend systems such as Magento and OpenCart.

Hampshire Group has promoted David Price to the role of chief operating officer. Price held the role of SVP of operations at Hampshire Group since 2012.

He will report to chairman and CEO Paul Buxbaum, and will oversee operations in all divisions of Hampshire Group.

“We are thrilled to promote David into the role of COO. David has been an integral part of the turnaround effort of Hampshire Group, and he will serve an even more important role in building the business going forward,” said Buxbaum.

Washington, D.C. -- Consumers opened up their pocketbooks a bit in February, according to figures released Friday by the U.S. Commerce Department. Consumer spending increased 0.3% last month after a downwardly revised gain of 0.2% in January. The February increase was the biggest since November.

Personal income was up 0.3%, matching January's gain. It was the second straight monthly increase.