OPERATIONS / SUPPLY CHAIN

Fort Worth, Texas -- Pier 1 Imports has named Eric Hunter as executive VP of marketing, responsible for the company’s brand image and integrated marketing efforts. He most recently served as senior VP of marketing and acting chief marketing officer for J.C. Penney Co., where he led strategy, research, creative, media, customer relationship management and digital direction for the JCP enterprise brand and all JCP-owned brands.

San Francisco -- Piracy and discoverability are the top issues facing app developers today, with 26% of app developers reporting their apps have been pirated. A survey of more than 250 app developers App Developers Conference (ADC) also shows that a similar 26% found that their apps had been hacked, or obtained without proper payment.

Sunbury, Pa. -- Weis Markets announced that company president and CEO David J. Hepfinger has left the company to pursue other interests. Company vice chairman Jonathan H. Weis replaces him as interim CEO. Robert F. Weis remains as company chairman.

Hepfinger has also resigned from the company's board of directors. As part of the reorganization, Kurt Schertle, executive VP, sales and merchandising will report directly to Weis who will also oversee the company's real estate/store development, finance and human resources' teams.

Minneapolis – Target Corp. reportedly plans to hire 70,000 seasonal workers for the upcoming holiday season, about 20% less than the 88,000 seasonal workers it hired for last year’s holiday season.

According to the Associated Press, Target wants to give full-time employees more opportunity to take on extra holiday hours. The retailer also wants to better anticipate and schedule for fluctuations in holiday traffic. About one-third of seasonal employees brought on last year obtained full-time jobs at Target.

Cincinnati – David B. Dillon will step down as CEO of The Kroger Co. effective Jan. 1, 2014. Dillon, 62, is a 37-year Kroger veteran who has been serving as CEO since 2003; he will remain chairman of the board.

Amsterdam, Netherlands – Staples Europe has launched a new Staples.es website aimed at helping small businesses locate and purchase products.

The site has a new look and feel and offers many new features to improve the overall shopping experience including personalized shopping with product recommendations based on customer preferences, an updated search engine and filtering tools, streamlined reordering for frequently used products, and quick checkout with a mini-cart that designed to ease inserting coupons, saving addresses and reviewing orders.

Atlanta -- The Home Depot has appointed CVS executive VP and chief healthcare strategy and marketing officer Helena Foulkes to its board of directors.

Foulkes, 49 will be a member of the Finance and Leadership Development & Compensation Committees.

Walnut Creek, Calif. – While the percentage of retailers who think they know about their customers is rising, fewer retailers think they are proficient in using that knowledge for marketing purposes. According to a new study from RSR Research, “Retail Marketing 2013: Organizational Drift,” 36% of retail marketers said their customer loyalty program is a foundational element of their marketing strategy in 2013, compared to 32% last year.