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While Wal-Mart and Target fight over toys, retail consultant Howard Davidowitz says the outcome of their battle will be decided in the electronics section, not the toy aisle.

MADRID -- French luxury goods maker Hermes International SA on Tuesday said third-quarter sales rose 31% to 590.1 million euros ($817 million) against €452.1 million in the year-ago period. At constant exchange rates, sales rose 20%. The group reported robust growth in its own store sales. For the first nine months of the year, sales rose 25.4% reported and a 20% at constant exchange rates. Hermes said the recovery in wholesale revenues seen in the first half was confirmed and all its businesses delivered growth. The group said its sales target for the year could be around 15% at

Teradata Corp. announced that it has completed a data warehouse expansion agreement with Best Buy Co. The retailer leverages the supplier’s enterprise data warehouse (EDW) to provide business insight to its many users across a variety of business processes.With this new extension to its database-driven business intelligence platform, Best Buy will have the ability to further bring together customer and product insights gathered from across its value chain.

Women's apparel retailer Talbots will tailor its stores' merchandise offerings based on buying patterns, size profiles and customer preferences using the Oracle Retail Planning and Optimization suite.

Angela Ahrendts, Burberry CEO, speaks to the World Retail Congress in Berlin about the Burberry culture and values, and its relationship to its customers.

LONDON -- U.K. retailer Marks & Spencer Group said Tuesday that its fiscal first-half net profit rose 16% to 261.2 million pounds ($421.6 million) as revenue grew 5.4% to 4.57 billion pounds. Adjusted pretax profit at the group rose 17% to 348.6 million pounds and was in line with the 347 million pounds consensus forecast. Marks & Spencer said comparable U.K. sales rose 4.4% from a year earlier. CEO Marc Bolland, who joined the company earlier this year, said his focus over the next three years will be on growing the core U.K. business and that capital spending over

Online retailer Amazon.com ( NASDAQ :AMZN) said Monday it was purchasing Quidsi, parent company of special online retailers Diapers.com and Soap.com in a deal worth about $500 million. The move adds even more “everyday” products to Amazon’s product portfolio, which is looking to become more than an online retailer. Under the terms of the deal, Amazon will acquire the privately-held Quidsi, which will continue to operate separately from Amazon.com’s main retail arm. The company’s current leadership team, headed by co-founder and COO Vinit Bharara, will remain on to help with the transition.

Retailers are on pace to hire the most temporary workers for the holiday season in three years, according to outplacment firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. Retail stores increased payrolls by 150,900 in October — three times more than the same month in 2009 — based on data from the U.S. Labor Department.

Apparel retailer Liz Claiborne continues to trim its product inventories—by 27% year-over-year—amid continuing concerns about marketplace inventory levels relative to demand and competitive promotion activity.

Sephora, the hip cosmetics chain, continues its trailblazing ways with the launch of an online social shopping community using Blippy, a social shopping application provider.