OPERATIONS / SUPPLY CHAIN

Bentonville, Ark. -- Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. plans to hire 55,000 seasonal associates for the 2013 holiday season, up from 50,000 last year. In addition, the retailer intends to transition more than 35,000 associates from temporary to part-time and another 35,000 associates from part-time to full-time.

Fort Worth, Texas -- Pier 1 Imports has named Eric Hunter as executive VP of marketing, responsible for the company’s brand image and integrated marketing efforts. He most recently served as senior VP of marketing and acting chief marketing officer for J.C. Penney Co., where he led strategy, research, creative, media, customer relationship management and digital direction for the JCP enterprise brand and all JCP-owned brands.

Delran, N.J. -- More than 20 Sears Home Appliance Showroom and Sears Appliance & Hardware stores in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware have unveiled kitchen remodeling services from Kitchen Tune-Up, a national kitchen and bath remodeling franchise.

The stores feature an interactive Kitchen Tune-Up kiosk, where customers can learn about options to update their kitchens, view cabinet door samples and use an iPad to see project ideas and book appointments.

York, Pa. - The Bon-Ton Stores, Inc. board of directors has unanimously elected Steven Silverstein to its board, effective immediately. Silverstein will serve on the Human Resources and Compensation Committee.

Minneapolis – Target Corp. reportedly plans to hire 70,000 seasonal workers for the upcoming holiday season, about 20% less than the 88,000 seasonal workers it hired for last year’s holiday season.

According to the Associated Press, Target wants to give full-time employees more opportunity to take on extra holiday hours. The retailer also wants to better anticipate and schedule for fluctuations in holiday traffic. About one-third of seasonal employees brought on last year obtained full-time jobs at Target.

Cincinnati – David B. Dillon will step down as CEO of The Kroger Co. effective Jan. 1, 2014. Dillon, 62, is a 37-year Kroger veteran who has been serving as CEO since 2003; he will remain chairman of the board.

Amsterdam, Netherlands – Staples Europe has launched a new Staples.es website aimed at helping small businesses locate and purchase products.

The site has a new look and feel and offers many new features to improve the overall shopping experience including personalized shopping with product recommendations based on customer preferences, an updated search engine and filtering tools, streamlined reordering for frequently used products, and quick checkout with a mini-cart that designed to ease inserting coupons, saving addresses and reviewing orders.

Atlanta -- The Home Depot has appointed CVS executive VP and chief healthcare strategy and marketing officer Helena Foulkes to its board of directors.

Foulkes, 49 will be a member of the Finance and Leadership Development & Compensation Committees.