{"id":372,"date":"2011-05-15T10:18:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-15T14:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom.chainstoreguide.com\/2011\/05\/discount-and-specialty-industry-updates-2\/"},"modified":"2011-05-15T10:18:00","modified_gmt":"2011-05-15T14:18:00","slug":"discount-and-specialty-industry-updates-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/2011\/05\/discount-and-specialty-industry-updates-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Discount and Specialty Industry Updates"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/p>\n
Personnel Updates:<\/o:p><\/span><\/b><\/div>\n
Big Lots<\/b>\u00a0made several merchandising moves to facilitate its planned growth.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
The closeout retailer announced it has hired former\u00a0Sears<\/b>\u00a0merchandising executive Doug Wurl to serve as its Exec VP Merchandising. He assumes responsibilities previously held by John Martin who was named Exec VP Administration with responsibility for store operations and human resources.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Family Dollar Stores<\/b>\u00a0announced that it has named Brad Rogers to the position of VP Real Estate Development.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
HSN<\/b>\u00a0announced that Betsy Olum has been appointed general GM Beauty and Merchandising Strategy.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Indigo Books & Music Inc<\/b>. announced the appointment of veteran retailer and current Indigo Board member Tedford G. Marlow to the position of President.\u00a0\u00a0Indigo also announced the appointment of\u00a0Kay Brekken, Senior VP, Finance to the position of CFO. Ms. Brekken succeeds outgoing CFO and COO Jim McGill who will remain with Indigo in the COO role until July.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Joel Silver, who has served as President for the last several years, will be appointed to Indigo\u2019s Board of Directors.<\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Liquidation World Inc<\/b>. announced that director Craig Graham has agreed to provide additional management expertise by joining the Company as COO.\u00a0\u00a0Chris Rath, the Company’s former Chief Financial Officer will serve in the capacity of Interim Vice President Finance replacing David Becker Interim Chief Financial Officer and further to cost reduction initiatives announced last month Juan Zepeda will be stepping down as Vice President Operations.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
OfficeMax<\/b>\u00a0announced that former\u00a0Walmart\u00a0<\/b>merchandising and store operations executive Michael Lewis was named Exec VP and President of Retail.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
OfficeMax<\/b>\u00a0announced that\u00a0Bob Thacker, Senior VP of Marketing and Advertising has left the company to pursue an opportunity as a strategic advisor to help a firm\u2019s consumer electronics, retail, consumer packaged goods and technology clients.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Pet Supplies “Plus”<\/b>\u00a0announced that Dave Bolen will join the company as President.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Financial Focus:<\/o:p><\/span><\/b><\/div>\n
ALCO Stores<\/b>\u00a0reported that net sales from continuing operations for the fiscal year decreased 0.6% to $465.2 million.<\/o:p><\/b><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
99 Cents Only Stores<\/b>\u00a0reported that total sales for fiscal 2010 were $1.36 billion, compared with $1.35 billion for the prior-year period.\u00a0\u00a0<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Hancock Fabrics<\/b>\u00a0reported that net sales the year were $275.5 million compared with $274.1 million in the previous year.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Industry Insight:<\/o:p><\/span><\/b><\/div>\n
Best Buy<\/b>\u00a0said it plans to double the number of Best Buy Mobile stores by the end of the current fiscal year by opening 150 new freestanding\u00a0stores to give it a total of 325 units<\/i><\/b>. (Key new total stores,\u00a0currently have<\/b>\u00a041BB\u00a0Mobile<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/b>Conversely, expansion of Best Buy\u2019s large format stores will slow considerably as only six to eight new units are planned for the current fiscal year. That equate to 1% square footage growth, which is well below the 5% rate seen during the past five years.\u00a0\u00a0Keyed for Feb Insight.\u00a0\u00a0Check<\/o:p><\/b><\/span><\/div>\n
325 total for G2 for FYE.<\/o:p><\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Pep Boys<\/b>\u00a0plans to add 50 stores nationally this year.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Green Initiatives:<\/o:p><\/span><\/b><\/div>\n
RadioShack\u00a0<\/b>announced that it wa<\/p>\n

s giving customers the chance to win the new eco-friendly Nissan Leaf simply by trading in their used electronics devices.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n

Between April 17 and 23, customers could bring in eligible working products and accessories into any participating RadioShack store and enter to win a Nissan LEAF, the only 100% electric, zero-emissions vehicle available in the mass market.\u00a0<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
RadioShack made it easier to recycle old electronics, and offered an appraisal of value, which could provide credit toward purchasing the latest in technology.\u00a0\u00a0The company stated it was trying to make it convenient and rewarding for customers to trade in their old electronics, rather than putting them into the trash and eventually landfills.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Target<\/b>\u00a0announced that it will adopt green refrigeration technologies in its stores as part of its new membership in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) GreenChill program.\u00a0 By joining the GreenChill program, Target will be able to utilize an industry benchmarking system and obtain greater access to EPA research.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Personnel Updates: Big Lots\u00a0made several merchandising moves to facilitate its planned growth. The closeout retailer announced it has hired former\u00a0Sears\u00a0merchandising executive Doug Wurl to serve as its Exec VP Merchandising. He assumes responsibilities previously held by John Martin who was named Exec VP Administration with responsibility for store operations and human resources. Family Dollar Stores\u00a0announced… Continue reading Discount and Specialty Industry Updates<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"post-template-no-sidebar.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[6,11],"class_list":["post-372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discount-specialty","tag-csg-old","tag-eupdate","entry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}