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San Antonio — The Progressive Retailers Organization was at the Westin La Cantera Hill Coun
Fort Worth, Texas – The Progressive Retailers Organization (PRO Group) has added a manufacturer’s rep firm to its ranks.
The new addition, Rymax Marketing Services, provides brand-name premium and incentive merchandise to corporate end-users and premium resellers at factory-direct pricing. The company also operates a fully-owned fulfillment arm, Brainstorm Logistics.
Rymax will formally join the specialty A/V buying group on March 1.
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New York – Barnes & Noble’s Nook Media business helped drag down overall revenue and net earnings for the bookseller’s fiscal third quarter.
The company posted an 8.8 percent fall off in revenue, down to $2.2 billion, and a net earnings loss of $6.1 million, compared with a $52 million gain during the same period last year.
Hoffman Estates, Ill. – Sears staunched its sales and earnings free fall last year, although CE weighed heavily on its results.
Net loss for the fourth quarter ended Feb. 2 was $489 million, compared to a year-ago loss of $2.4 billion, and net loss for the full fiscal year was $626 million, compared to $3.1 billion in 2011.
Sales declines also eased, slipping just 1.6 percent to $12.3 billion for the quarter, due in part to an extra sales week in the reporting period.
Minneapolis — Best Buy has delayed its fourth-quarter and full-year earnings announcement until Friday.
A company spokesman told the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal that the 24-hour delay is intended to give former chairman Dick Schulze the full day to submit a buyout bid by the Feb. 28 deadline.
The cutoff is the third extension granted to Schulze by the board, who announced his intentions last summer to take the company private.
Phoenix — A study of showrooming in CE retail stores found that convenience and live product displays are the two top drivers of brick-and-mortar traffic.
Price was ranked third in importance in a poll of 482 Internet-savvy CE shoppers, conducted this month for the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) by Ipsos MediaCT.
In contrast, the top-three motivators for purchasing online are price, convenience and selection/availability.
Mooresville, N.C. — Lowe’s reported slightly lower net earnings and net sales, but higher comp store sales in its fiscal fourth quarter, ended Feb. 1.
Net earnings were $288 million in the quarter, compared with $322 million year on year. Net sales for the fourth quarter decreased 5 percent to $11 billion, from $11.6 billion in the fourth quarter of 2011.
Comp-store sales for the fourth quarter of 2012 increased 1.9 percent on a consolidated basis as well as for the U.S. business.
New York — Barnes & Noble founder, chairman and majority shareholder Leonard Riggio is looking to buy out the bookseller’s core retail business, which would separate it from Nook.
The proposed transaction, which was announced to the company’s board this morning, would include Barnes & Noble Booksellers and Barnesandnoble.com. The deal would exclude the company’s e-reader and digital content operation, as well as its college bookstore business, which includes 674 campus locations.
Bentonville, Ark. – Wal-Mart said net income rose 7.9 percent to $5.6 billion and net sales increased 3.9 percent to $127.1 billion for its fiscal fourth quarter, ended Jan. 31.
Same-store stores edged up 1 percent, thanks partly to CE comp and share gains in the U.S.
For the full year, profits increased 7.8 percent to nearly $17 billion and net sales rose 5 percent to $466.1 billion.
Barrington, Ill. — Home Technology Specialists of America (HTSA) has added Premier Technology Group of Houston as its newest member.
Premier Technology Group serves both the home and business markets with the design and installation of integrated electronics systems, including lighting and shade control, fire and security, automation, audio/video, IT, and communication and electrical systems, HTSA said in a statement.
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