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Macy's and Bloomingdale's will expand their horizons by opening in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2018. Until now, Macy's has remained a domestic retailer while other brands, including Bloomingdale's, have expanded globally. The stores will open in the Al Maryah Central, a new regional shopping center on Al Maryah Island. It's a mixed-use 3.1 million-square-foot development with retail, cafes, restaurants, a cinema, health club, luxury hotel and residential towers.

Hennes & Mauritz AB will blacklist a spinning mill in southern India after a report claimed five manufacturers there use child labor and subjected workers, mostly women and girls, to "appalling" working conditions. H&M will ban suppliers from using products made by Tamil Nadu-based Super Spinning Mills Ltd., the Stockholm-based company said on Tuesday. A Bangladeshi supplier has used yarn produced at the mill, though H&M doesn't have a direct business agreement, Spokeswoman Lena Enocson Almroth said in an email. Super was "unwilling to cooperate with H&M in a transparent way."

In a move echoing the founding days of Overstock.com, the company has purchased the entire inventory of online jewelry company Bidz.com, out of foreclosure. "We don't want to lose sight of where we come from," said Overstock President Stormy Simon. "When we have opportunities to bring our customers extraordinary deals like this, we make it happen." Several Brink's armored trucks transported  the high-end jewelry, which was estimated at more than $89 million, from California to Overstock's Utah distribution center in preparation for sale on the website. 

Amazon.com's CEO Jeff Bezos has a knack for harnessing product reviews to get consumers to buy online. Lisa Diaz unknowingly became part of that marketing push last month after posting a comment on how much her son would like a train set shown on an Amazon social media page. The company took her feedback — along with that from 400,000 other moms who post on one of the company's Facebook pages — and distilled it into a "Mom Picks 2014" list of 50 top toys and games for the holidays.

Retail giant Wal-Mart caused a stir on Monday, after a listing for plus-size Halloween outfits appeared on its website under the heading "Fat Girl Costumes." The retail chain quickly backtracked, issuing an apology before changing the heading to "Women's Plus-Size Halloween Costumes." "This never should have been on our site. It's unacceptable, and we apologize," a spokesperson for the company said. "We are working to remove it as soon as possible and ensure this never happens again."

CVS and Apple Pay were never officially friends, but now they seem to have broken up officially, so the drug-store chain can develop its own mobile wallet in partnership with other big-name retail brands, including Rite Aid, which also shut down mobile payments over the weekend.

After years of ending the holiday shopping season with too much merchandise stacked in their warehouses, U.S. retailers face the opposite this year: they may not have enough. Equipment shortages, labor negotiations and rail delays are slowing shipments from the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the nation's biggest container hub, just as retailers are piling up goods for their most important period of the year. Cargo shipments through the two ports rose 3.1 percent in the third quarter, slower than the 4.3 percent gain a year earlier.

San Francisco-based Gap Inc. signed deals to open Old Navy stores in six countries in the Middle East next year. Franchisees Fawaz A. Alhokair & Co. and Azadea will open the new stores beginning in the U.A.E., Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Gap has had Gap and Banana Republic stores in the region since 2007. "Entering the Middle East is an important milestone in our strategy to share Old Navy with a broader, global customer base," said Robert Frank, executive vice president of Old Navy International, in a company statement. 

Earlier this week, lululemon announced that it would be partnering with the Dalai Lama Center for Peace + Education and contributing $750,000 over the next three years to support the center's initiatives. According to The Globe and Mail, the announcement didn't take long to elicit plenty of complaints from consumers over the fact that a company that pushes $100 yoga pants will be teaming up with the Dalai Lami, a well-known advocate for the poor. "Some people are disgusted by it; some people think it's really bizarre," Jennilyn Carson, founder of YogaDork.com, told The Globe and Mail. 

I believe that merchants are very important to a retail organization. They shape the future of their company with innovative and creative ideas. They're always on the lookout for new fashion trends. They visit stores and designers to learn and see the future. Fashion leadership starts at the top and then permeates the whole store organization. Whether it's a color, new look or new allocation of space, it's the merchant who will decide. Some of retail's top merchants I admire include Mike Gould, Roger Farah, Mickey Drexler and Karen Katz.