Management

Target plans to invest billions of dollars this year streamlining operations, opening more small stores and creating a product mix designed to appeal to a younger, broader consumer demographic. The retailer will also cut several thousand jobs in the next two years as part of a cost-savings plan, Target managers said at a meeting Tuesday with financial analysts and investors. The company didn't say how many of its employees will be cut, although most are expected to be at the company's Minneapolis base, where it employs 13,000.

In January, Gap announced it would scrap the role of creative director, and with it, the job of Rebekka Bay. It was, frankly, a bummer for anyone nostalgic for the days when Gap was a source for true basics: trend-proof pocket tees, blue jeans, cotton sweaters, and even, yes, khakis. Bay, who came to Gap in 2007 from the H&M-owned label Cos, had vowed to restore the retailer to its clean, casual heyday. But, as Lauren Sherman pointed out at Fashionista, Gap's merchandising structure has muddied the creative direction of leaders such as Bay in the stores.

Trading was halted Monday in Lumber Liquidators after its shares dropped more than 20 percent following a CBS report that the company sold flooring with higher levels of formaldehyde than permitted under California's health and safety standards. The trading was halted for pending news. The stock had fallen 24.8 percent before the market opened Monday. The "60 Minutes" piece on Sunday said it tested Lumber Liquidators’ flooring in Virginia, Florida, Texas, Illinois and New York for levels of formaldehyde, a cancer-causing chemical.

Amazon.com, a technology company obsessed with secrecy, is hiring a former press secretary for President Obama, whose administration has been widely criticized for its aggressive leak investigations. Jay Carney, who resigned as the president's chief spokesman last spring, is joining Amazon as senior vice president for global corporate affairs, a new position, the retailer said Thursday. It's an unusual hire for the Seattle-based company, which tends to groom its talent internally rather than bring in prominent outsiders. Mr. Carney, who begins his new job on Monday, will report to Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder and CEO.

Online retailer Nasty Gal is gearing up for its brick-and-mortar moment and has brought in former Apple retail boss Ron Johnson to help guide the way. Johnson is leading a $16 million investment in the Los Angeles-based company and joining the women retailer's board of directors, founder Sophia Amoruso told Re/code. Johnson was the mastermind of Apple's retail strategy and then held the CEO role at J.C. Penney in a tumultuous stint. He's now CEO of a yet-to-launch e-commerce startup called Enjoy.

Bed Bath & Beyond's (BB&B) merchandising concept — a massive space offering a plethora of products — is known in the retail world as "big box." It's the opposite approach of carefully curated home stores like Williams-Sonoma and Crate and Barrel, but was widely popular when BB&B first hit the market. Toys"R"Us was the first retailer to adopt this "category-killer strategy," explains retail analyst Warren Shoulberg. In the pre-e-commerce era, retailers wanted to keep shoppers in stores by offering them anything and everything.

TJX Cos. said it would increase the minimum hourly wage of employees in 2,500 stores to $9, joining a growing number of U.S. retailers raising the pay for workers at the lowest end of the pay scale. TJX, which operates T.J. Maxx and Marshalls chains in 49 states, follows Wal-Mart and Gap in boosting their pay well above the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. 

With Ann Taylor and Chico's FAS Inc. fielding takeover offers, would-be buyers have to decide whether aging brands can adapt to a culture where women are dressing younger than ever. ANN Inc., Chico's and other chains that have long catered to older professional women haven't built as much rapport with millennial shoppers, who don't want to shop at the same stores as their moms, said Liz Dunn, CEO of consulting firm Talmage Advisors. Even women approaching middle age are wary of retailers that are perceived as old, she said.

Walgreen Co. was within its rights to fire a pharmacist who had moral objections to administering flu vaccines, a federal judge has ruled. Rodney Prewitt, a 66-year-old pharmacist who had worked at the company for about five years, sued Walgreens after the pharmacy started a program in 2010 offering 20 vaccines, including one for the flu, to customers in its stores nationwide. It required pharmacists to complete a training program in order to administer the vaccines and immunize customers who asked for the service.

A few years ago, Kip Tindell found himself at a crossroads. Tindell is CEO of The Container Store, the retail company he co-founded in Dallas in 1978. He's worked with his wife, Sharon, the entire time, and many other executives have been there for decades, too. Tindell's ambitions grew over time. He realized The Container Store, which had been operating in big metropolitan areas, could expand into smaller cities. He also wanted to offer more employees stock in the company. But he was conflicted. "There are only a few things you can do to finance that," he says.