E-marketplace The Grommet has made a series of senior-level hires.
The Grommet, No. 487 in the Internet Retailer 2017 Top 500, today announced it has hired Ali Aslam as its vice president of engineering, Vanessa Ferranto as its director of product management and Doug Murphy as its director of customer experience.
Aslam, who started in March, came from television advertising sales platform provider clypd, where he was most recently principal software engineer. He also has worked at analytics company Novetta, and nutritional supplements manufacturer NutraClick.
Ferranto, who started in April, comes from car-sharing service ZipCar, where she was most recently senior manager of product and experience. She has also worked at medical equipment-sharing platform Cohealo and the Boston Globe newspaper. Murphy, meanwhile, has spent the past 15 years at American Express, working his way up from financial analyst to director of operations. He started in June.
In other e-commerce news:
- Apparel manufacturer VF Corp. (No. 91) said Monday that online sales increased 34% year over year during the fiscal second quarter ended July 1. The company did not disclose a figure for online sales.
- Home furnishings retailer Williams-Sonoma Inc. (No. 23) has hired Ryan Ross from HSN Inc. (No. 28) to be president of its Rejuvenation brand. Ross had spent the past four years at HSN, most recently as its executive vice president of marketing and digital commerce. He’s no stranger to Williams-Sonoma though, having spent more than eight years working for the company’s Pottery Barn brand, where he was a vice president before leaving in October 2008.
- Fry’s Electronics Inc. (No. 354) is making 90% of its products eligible for same-day delivery. Fry’s last week said it is using same-day delivery provider Deliv for its same-day and scheduled deliveries. Same-day delivery will begin in half of Fry’s markets, including San Jose, Orange County and Los Angeles in California; Las Vegas; Dallas; Houston; and Seattle. The introductory charge is $4.99, and Fry’s says more than 500 items will be eligible for free same-day delivery, which customers can schedule. “Our customers are passionate about technology, which means in today’s world they want to get their hands on our products as quickly as possible,” president Randy Fry says. Fry’s customers located in Deliv’s markets can shop on Frys.com and select a same-day delivery window on the checkout page. Fry’s then sends notifications to Deliv and a Deliv driver picks up items from the nearest Fry’s store.
- Party City Corp. (No. 236) has invested an unspecified amount in digital greeting card platform Punchbowl.
- Mobile retail platform NewStore earlier this month closed a $50 million funding round. Venture capital firm Activant Capital led this round. Activant Capital has also invested in mobile point-of-sale platform provider ShopKeep. According to CrunchBase, this brings the total amount raised by NewStore to $90.4 million across four funding rounds since launching in 2015.