News

Chicago -- For pure play premium pet food and accessories retailer PetFlow, online marketing is a crucial component of its business. Initially, PetFlow used Google AdWords to direct consumers searching for specific pet products to its site. However, as PetFlow co-founder Alex Zhardanovsky told the audience during a morning keynote session at the Internet Retailer Conference in Chicago, initial efforts by the retailer to expand its online marketing activities to Facebook did not work so well.

Walmart U.S. chief merchandising and marketing officer Duncan Mac Naughton will have some explaining to do next week when he is scheduled to participate in the 33rd Annual William Blair Growth Stock Conference on Wednesday, June 12.

SUFFERN, N.Y. — Lower-than-expected foot traffic driven in part by unseasonably cold weather was not enough to negatively impact Ascena Retail Group’s net sales for the third quarter ended April 27, which were bolstered by the recently acquired Lane Bryant and Catherines businesses.

Stanley Black & Decker is trying a new logo on for size. Although it's still yellow and black and still spells "Stanley," it represents a new brand identity for the iconic tool brand and diverse industrial company. 

The Woodlands, Texas -- Conn's Inc.’s net income nearly doubled in its first-quarter, with strong sales of furniture and mattresses and some higher prices. The company lifted its fiscal 2014 adjusted earnings forecast.

Conn's earned a better-than-expected $22.2 million for the quarter ended April 30, up from $11.6 million a year ago.

Revenue jumped 25% to $251.1 million. Same-store sales rose 16.5%.

DALLAS — AT&T and IBM teamed up to deliver an e-commerce solution that retailers can use to provide their customers with a consistent shopping experience whether they are shopping online, via a mobile app or in stores.

The new service, expected to be available this year, combines AT&T’s cloud, application management and network services with e-commerce software from IBM’s Smarter Commerce initiative in a single, subscription-based package designed for retailers.

As fans of the late ’90s Ben Affleck-Matt Damon film “Good Will Hunting” know, Cambridge, Mass., is often viewed as the province of what are locally referred to as “smaht kids.” I was privileged to be surrounded by “smaht kids” (or their grown-up equivalent) during the recent MIT Sloan CIO Symposium, which was held at Kresge Auditorium on the MIT campus in Cambridge. While there, I got to listen to their insights on how the evolution of IT and business is dramatically changing the role of the CIO.

Store level execution, a topic near but not always so dear to the hearts of Walmart suppliers, will be the focus of a Doing Business in Bentonville event scheduled for next Wednesday.