OPERATIONS / SUPPLY CHAIN

New York -- Ron Johnson is reportedly stepping back into the public arena. The former J.C. Penney chief (and, before that, Apple retail head) is about to launch a “high-end, on-demand delivery service” for electronic devices, according to The Information. The report described the service as "Best Buy's Geek Squad meets Apple's Genius Bar."

Boston - Gordon Brothers Group, a global advisory, restructuring and investment firm specializing in the retail, consumer products, industrial and real estate sectors, has promoted Frank Grimaldi to national sales manager of the firm’s Valuation & Advisory Services Division, effective Oct. 1.

New York - L.L. Bean provided the best overall customer service in August 2014. This marked the retailer’s fourth time topping Stella Benchmarks in customer service during 2014.

The retailer repeated its top performance from the previous month by ranking among the Top 25 in phone, email, shipping and returns. Nine companies that did not rank in the Top 25 overall for July earned a spot in August: Gap, Marc Jacobs, Burberry, Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Motosport, Microsoft, Brooks Brothers and Wayfair.

Arlington, Va. -- The Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) and global sustainability non-profit Forum for the Future have launched a project to empower sustainability initiatives, Retail Horizons. The project is being launched ahead of the RILA 2014 Retail Sustainability Conference held from Sept. 29 to Oct. 2, in Minneapolis. Click here for a two-minute video on the program.  

Seattle -- REI announced that Annie Zipfel has been promoted to senior VP marketing. With her, REI will not hire a chief marketing officer as previously announced, but instead add a senior creative leader to the company.

Zipfel joined REI in 2012 as the divisional VP customer marketing, and was named VP of the marketing division in January 2014. Prior to REI, she held leadership and strategic roles at Target and General Mills.

Boston – UsTrendy, a fashion e-commerce site with 20,000 designers from more than 100 countries posting their items for sale and receiving funding along with promotion for their clothing lines, is launching several new customer experience features in fourth quarter 2014.

These include:

Purchasers can customize clothing to fit by entering their measurements. They can also adjust the style of a garment, according to the designer’s choices.

Wayne, N.J. – Toys ‘R Us Inc. plans to hire 45,000 seasonal employees at its stores and distribution centers nationwide, more than doubling the company’s workforce, as it prepares for the 2014 holiday shopping season.

The positions include sales associates, stock crew and omnichannel fulfillment teams, as well as distribution center workers and department managers.

New York -- PayPal has made its first direct entry into the virtual currency space. The company announced via a blog post that it has entered into agreements with leading Bitcoin payment processors BitPay, Coinbase and GoCoin. The agreements let PayPal’s digital goods merchants in North America accept Bitcoin, with a simple integration through the PayPal Payments Hub.