News

BrandMasters is the name of a new experiential marketing agency created by Crossmark, one of the companies that executes in store activities at Walmart under the Shopper Events banner.

Boston -- Popular jewelry retailer Alex and Ani implemented a mobile point-of-sale application that all but eliminated customer lines and helped increase sales by 318% over the previous holiday season, Mobiquity announced.

London -- Three cities in Germany are ranked the top five European markets for commercial real estate investment, according to a report by the Urban Land Institute (ULI) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

Munich took the top spot in the report, “Emerging Trends in Real Estate Europe 2013,” followed by Berlin, London, Istanbul and Hamburg. The ranking of 27 cities across Europe was based on respondents’ expectations for market performance in 2013.

CHICAGO — One-in-five consumers between the ages of 35 years and 54 years are choosing products due to a loyalty card discount, SymphonyIRI Group reported Wednesday as part of its Q4 2012 MarketPulse survey. And almost one-third are forsaking their preferred brands due to a sale price. The survey found that shopper sentiment dropped to its lowest point since Q3 2011.

BOCA RATON, Fla. — Office Depot announced that it has been recognized by DiversityBusiness.com, the nation's leading multicultural business-to-business website, as one of the “Top 50 Organizations for Multicultural Business Opportunities” for 13 successive years. Office Depot was ranked fifth on the list.

Companies on the "Div50" list are recognized for the volume, consistency, and quality of business opportunities granted to women- and minority-owned companies. 

CITY OF COMMERCE, Calif. — Former Food Lion CEO, and current board member for 99 Cents Only Stores, Richard Anicetti, is assuming the role of interim CEO for the discount retailer. In addition, Michael Fung will join the company as interim chief administrative officer overseeing finance, information technology, real estate and various administrative functions of the company.  

In connection with the foregoing changes, Eric Schiffer, Jeff Gold and Howard Gold are no longer employed by the company. 

Tampa, Fla. -- Applied Data Corp. said Wednesday that regional grocery chain Carlie C’s has selected ADC’s – a provider of fresh item management, recipe management, and scales management software – InterScale Scales Management Software system.
 


New York -- In a Thursday report by the New York Post citing unnamed sources, the publication said that J.C. Penney CEO Ron Johnson is pushing some of its vendors to inflate their pricing so that the department store’s retail pricing appears lower than it actually is.

Sources told The Post that the plan includes putting up signs and fixturing to display fabricated retail pricing, while the merchandise is then tagged with J.C. Penney’s own lower prices.