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MOORESVILLE, N.C. — Lowe's continues to implement its customer-focused strategy with the creation of new executive roles. The company has created a customer experience division that will be led by Gregory Bridgeford, chief customer officer, who is responsible for creating customer experiences that will best serve customers and differentiate Lowe’s from its competitors. Reporting to Bridgeford are: Robert Gfeller, customer experience design executive. Gfeller previously served as EVP merchandising. His new responsibilities include leading the design of compelling, differentiating experiences across the United States multi-channel business. Over the near term, Gfeller will continue to lead the merchandising function until

/PRNewswire/ -- Today, Piperlime, the online shop known for the freshest styles in fashion, announced it will open its first retail store this fall, at 121 Wooster St. in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City. The new 4,000 square foot Piperlime store will offer a similar curated assortment as online, immersing consumers in the brand's unique shopping experience. Styled as a boutique, the store will feature the best range of coveted, iconic brands like Milly, Frye and Citizens of Humanity as well as little known finds including Tinley Road, Ash and Maison Scotch. Sponsored by: "Our customers have

Shoppers in the United States earning at least $150,000 annually rank Nordstrom highest among luxury retailers, according to a survey by the Luxury Institute. According to the 2012 Luxury Consumer Experience Index, which ranks retailers based on customers’ evaluations of a brand's store personnel, shopping environment and degree of satisfaction with the total experience, Nordstrom earns the top overall score of 8.41 out of 10, followed by Bergdorf Goodman (8.37) and Barneys New York (8.23). Nordstrom was also the most widely visited luxury retailer, with 36 percent of respondents reporting shopping at Nordstrom in the past 12 months.

Billabong International Limited announced that it has appointed Launa Inman as Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer. Ms. Inman, who starts on May 14, 2012, replaces Derek O'Neill who departs the Company on May 9, 2

Chicago -- Forty-two percent of Americans are using social media to shop – this equates to nearly 95 million consumers – and that number continues to rise, according to a study by Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide. When asked how often social media is used to shop today versus a year ago, almost 73% of people confirmed they are using it more. The study, “SocialShop,” found that people of all ages are using social networking sites and other user-generated content platforms as shopping tools, with 42% of social shoppers using Facebook more than they were a year ago. Fifty-five percent of

Import cargo volume at the nation’s major retail container ports will be flat in May compared with the same month last year, but is expected to see solid year-over-year increases through this summer and the back-to-school season, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released yesterday by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.

The retail marketer's toolbox is filling up with new platforms, gadgets and slick technology faster than you can say "pin it." Over the last year, we've seen social and mobile grow in importance for retailers, leading to lots of questions, but also lots of room for creativity. And since May is Marketing Month, we wanted to get a chief marketing officer's perspective on where this social and mobile wave is taking us. We turned to Jay Dunn, chief marketing officer for Bare Necessities, to find out.

Walgreens announced it's completed its acquisition of certain assets of BioScrip’s community specialty pharmacies and centralized specialty and mail-service pharmacy businesses. The transaction represents a total deal value of approximately $225 million. “We welcome the BioScrip leaders and employees to the Walgreens family,” stated Kermit Crawford, Walgreens president pharmacy, health and wellness. “BioScrip’s clinically focused community specialty pharmacies and access to additional limited distribution drug therapies, combined with Walgreens' existing nationwide network of retail and health system pharmacies, creates a strong network of support for our core drug store business to provide specialty pharmacy solutions to our patients."

Talbots said it's received a raised takeover offer of $214.6 million from private equity firm Sycamore Partners. The company also said it entered an exclusivity agreement with Sycamore, which will end on May 15. Talbots said Sycamore had offered to pay $3.05 per share — slightly higher than the $3.00 per share offer it made in December. Talbots’ board of directors said it continues to evaluate strategic alternatives. Talbots' fourth-quarter loss widened to $53.2 million, or 77 cents per share, from last year’s loss from continuing operations of $2.8 million, or 4 cents per share.

The hybris Multichannel Shopping Survey found that over 80 percent of U.S consumers said they're more likely to become loyal customers to retailers that provide an integrated shopping experience across channels. The study also found the importance of online and mobile strategies continues to increase, with more than a third of respondents (39 percent) saying that they make more purchases online than in-store.