News

LOS ANGELES — Herdez, maker of Mexican food products and brand of MegaMex Foods announced today it expects expanded distribution to Walmart stores by June, and filling those shelves will be four new Mexican Cooking Sauces currently lining the sauce aisle at Los Angeles-area Albertsons stores.

The four new sauces include:

San Jose, Calif. -- SLI Systems said Wednesday that Cache has implemented its full-service Learning Search solution for Cache.com, resulting in an 88% increase in the conversion rate among site search users.

The company, said SLI, has also seen a 42% increase in site search usage by its online visitors, driving more sales and revenues.
 

Plano, Texas -- A Tuesday report by Reuters said that embattled J.C. Penney Co. has recently revived its previously abandoned pricing strategy of raising prices on its own brands then discounting them as a way to spike sales and margins.

Citing an emailed statement by Penney spokeswoman Daphne Avila, Reuters reported that the retailer began changing price tags on merchandise earlier in March and expects to complete the process in April.

Birmingham, Ala. -- Books-A-Million reported Wednesday a profit of $8.1 million for the fourth quarter, up slightly from $7.6 million a year earlier.

Sales dipped 0.8% to $165.6 million, and same-store sales dropped 6.1%.

For the full year, the retailer swung from a loss of $4 million to a profit of $2.5 million. Revenue rose 7.5% to $503.8 million.

Houston — Sprouts Farmers Market, an independent natural foods grocery store chain, opened its first Houston-area store today.

The 25,300-sq.-ft. store opened at the southwest corner of Cinco Ranch Boulevard and Peek Road in Katy, Texas. The store will sell farm-fresh produce and thousands of natural, organic and mainstream food items at an affordable price point.

Hackensack, N.J. -- Academy Service Group, nationwide provider of facility maintenance services, announced Wednesday that it has sold Academy Fire Protection to a California-based private equity firm.  

NEW YORK — The New York Times Editorial Board in an editorial published Tuesday, signaled Congress may be ready to take up the Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013, a bill allowing states to require online retailers to collect sales taxes.

Burlington, Mass. -- Enterprise cloud commerce solution-provider Demandware announced Wednesday that Jo-Ann Stores has selected the Demandware Commerce platform to support its digital commerce strategy.