OPERATIONS / SUPPLY CHAIN

Green Bay, Wis. -- Shopko said Thursday that it has named Nancy Altman as senior VP, chief marketing officer for the general merchandise chain.

Altman, who was previously VP marketing for Ulta, joins Shopko as it is in the process of converting more than 160 Pamida stores to its new Shopko Hometown format as part of a merger with Pamida that was finalized earlier this year. 
 

Armonk, N.Y. -- IBM’s fifth-annual Online Retail Holiday Readiness Report has uncovered that 2012 may just be the year of mobile.

Based on data from more than 500 U.S. retailers, the report found that online mobile sales increased 88.8% in the second quarter of 2012 compared with the same quarter in the prior year.

And IBM is forecasting that mobile sales will reach 20% of total online holiday sales this holiday season, and that mobile traffic will close in on 25%.

West Bridgewater, Mass. -- Supervalu banner Shaw's announced that two of its Rhode Island locations diverted more than 90% of store waste from local landfills as part of the company's zero-waste program.

Shaw's said its Barrington and Cranston stores achieved total waste diversion of 90.76% and 90.81%, respectively. In addition to the two new zero-waste stores in Rhode Island, the Shaw's Lancaster, N.H., store also is one of the newest to join the zero-waste program, bringing the company total to eight.

Richardson, Texas -- Fossil Inc. on Tuesday announced two additions and a promotion among its executive ranks.

Tom Kennedy was promoted to executive VP, from senior VP in the company’s retail division. In his new role, Kennedy will be responsible for the Fossil brand, including all product development and creative aspects.
 
Edward J. Robben joined the company as senior VP and chief information officer, and Joanne Calabrese joined as senior VP retail merchandising.

New York -- Barneys New York said Tuesday it has promoted Daniella Vitale to the newly created position of COO.

Vitale, since December 2010, has served as the retailer’s chief merchant and executive VP of women’s merchandising and Barneys.com.
With her promotion, Vitale will direct store operations as well as women’s merchandising and barneys.com as chief merchant of the retailer.

Prior to Barneys, Vitale was president of Gucci America.
 

Minneapolis -- A Tuesday report by Bloomberg said that Best Buy compensation consultant Don Delves resigned after Best Buy awarded more than 100 managers retention bonuses that weren’t tied to performance.

Citing people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reported that Delves – who is president of Chicago-based Delves Group and was retained by the Best Buy board -- was strongly opposed to the payments.  He has worked with the retailer’s compensation committee for seven years as an independent consultant.

Los Angeles -- Supervalu said Tuesday it has teamed with Yowza to make the mobile couponing app available to more than 1,900 independent stores.

"We are always looking for the next best way for the independent retailers we supply to offer more value to their shoppers," said Teresa Chipps, Supervalu VP marketing and education, Independent Business.

Yowza delivers digital coupons directly to shoppers' smartphones while they are shopping in the store.
 

Los Angeles -- A survey released Monday by PriceGrabber found that 37% of  back-to-school shoppers plan to use mobile phones to compare prices while in-store.

The results, which supplement PriceGrabber’s recently released Back-To-School Shopping Forecast, revealed that while consumers are planning to spend more money on back-to-school items this year, they continue to look for ways to stretch their dollar and take advantage of retailer incentives to save.