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The Supreme Court on Wednesday (Feb. 25) will hear the case of a young Muslim woman who says Abercrombie & Fitch illegally denied her a job because she wears a hijab in keeping with her faith. The store argues that company policy used to forbid floor "models" — the company's word for store employees who interact with customers — from wearing caps, and that it was up to Samantha Elauf, 17 at the time of her interview, to make it clear that she needed a religious accommodation.

One year ago, the USPS Inspector General said offering financial services could help generate $8.9 billion in new revenue per year for the Postal Service. Apparently postal workers agree, and their union said Wednesday the Postal Service should also capture a greater share of the growing e-commerce market. And if anyone understands the growth of e-commerce, it's the men and women carrying packages to shoppers’ front doors. 

Best Buy said yesterday it would open a technology development center in Seattle, taking the top floor of the Seattle Times Building. Set to begin operations in late spring, the office will employ more than 50 engineers, product managers, web architects and developers in the next year and is expected to expand to more than 100 e-commerce professionals over time. Best Buy looked at several cities before settling on Seattle because of its technology base, talent, cloud engineering and e-commerce strengths. 

Wal-Mart is spending $1 billion to make changes to how it pays and trains U.S. hourly workers as the embattled retailer tries to reshape the image that its stores offer dead-end jobs. As part of its biggest investment in worker training and pay ever, Wal-Mart told The Associated Press that within the next six months it will give raises to about 500,000 workers, or nearly 40 percent of its 1.3 million U.S. employees. Wal-Mart follows other retailers that have boosted hourly pay recently. 

Asos, a U.K.-based online seller of fashion and beauty products, tweeted a photo of 14 of its interns that sparked public outcry on Wednesday. The photo, which went out on the Asos recruitment team's account @ASOS_Careers, is plain and tame — a group of smiling, eager workers cheerfully posing for the camera, with a note about how much their employer will miss them when they're gone. What's so controversial about it? They're all Caucasian. 

Fast Retailing Co., Asia's biggest clothing chain, said two of its China-based suppliers are reducing working hours following a report that criticized the factories making its Uniqlo garments for labor abuses. Dongguan Tomwell Garment Co. has cut the hours of factory workers. Pacific Textiles Ltd. gave them one holiday per week and will introduce a system to reduce hours while keeping up production volumes next month, Yamaguchi, Japan-based Fast Retailing said in a statement.

Retailers took spending on product listing ads (PLAs) to another level at the end of 2014. According to data from Adobe Digital Index, Google Shopping ad spending in the retail sector grew 47 percent year-over-year and 53 percent quarter-over-quarter in last year's fourth quarter. Meanwhile, spending on Google text ads was down 6 percent year-over-year. PLAs accounted for one-fifth of U.S. retail search ad clicks in the fourth quarter of 2014. Despite their decline in spend, Google text ads led in share of search engine marketing clicks, grabbing two-thirds of the total. 

Leading branded footwear company Wolverine Worldwide is eyeing 2015 as a year to focus on omnichannel and expansion. The parent company of Stride Rite, Merrell and other brands says it's poised to realign its resources to address a fundamental shift in consumer shopping behavior and allow for greater focus on important omnichannel initiatives. The Michigan-based company also said that its fourth quarter net income rose as sales climbed in every region except North America. 

Seeking an end to a protracted labor dispute that's led to costly delays in West Coast shipping, President Obama has decided to intervene, the White House announced Saturday. At the president's request, Thomas E. Perez, secretary of labor, will travel to California to "meet with the parties to urge them to resolve their dispute quickly at the bargaining table," according to a statement issued by Eric Schultz, a White House spokesman. Perez will try to mediate a settlement between an association of the major shipowners of the West Coast and the union of longshoremen who unload those ships.

On its most important holiday of the year, 1-800-Flowers.com wilted. Significant others across the country purchased bouquets to be delivered this past weekend for Valentine's Day, but for another year in a row, more than a few failed to arrive on time — or turned up horrendously disfigured. Naturally, a pitchfork mob formed on Twitter, calling out the floral retailer for ruining their Valentine's Day and demanding full refunds. Over the past 12 hours, customer service reps have been responding to complaints, averaging about one reply every five minutes.