Management

CVS, the country's largest pharmacy chain, announced Friday on its Facebook page that it will shorten the ExtraCare portion of its receipts by roughly 25 percent following a social media frenzy this month that poked fun at the company. For the coupon fans among you, don't worry — the receipts will continue to have just as many coupons and rewards, the company said. Here's the Facebook post announcing the move:

Sears continues focusing on its Shop Your Way loyalty program, following second-quarter results for the period ended Aug. 3. While revenues and comparable store sales did slip, CEO Eddie Lampert did acknowledge the progress the company has made in its transformation to a member-centric company. Shop Your Way members represented more than 65 percent of the company's sales and they redeemed rewards points at a significantly higher rate than last year. 

The hedge fund manager William A. Ackman moved on Monday to sell his roughly 18 percent stake in J. C. Penney, nearly two weeks after he resigned from the board amid an unusual public battle with his fellow directors. Penney filed a prospectus with regulators giving notice that Mr. Ackman's firm, Pershing Square Capital Management, planned to sell its 39.1 million shares. The retailer, which will not receive any proceeds from the sale, didn't list an expected selling price.

You may have noticed over the last few months that when you look at a person's LinkedIn profile, you're asked, "Does ‘Joe Blow’ have skills or expertise?" It's a blue box at the top of your screen, you can't miss it. Or you may have received an email telling you that you've "been endorsed for specific skills." This is a great feature on Linkedin, and here's why:

As J.C. Penney attempts to recover from a period in which it alienated customers, enraged employees and suffered abysmal sales, its new chief executive, Mike Ullman, is aggressively purging corporate ranks and halting initiatives launched under the previous regime. In essence, Ullman appears intent on removing any trace of his predecessor, the former Apple executive Ron Johnson, whose disastrous 17-month tenure as J.C. Penney CEO ended with his ouster in April.

Sears Holdings says its Shop Your Way rewards program is working — very well, in fact — but it hasn't been enough to push the retailer into the black. During the second quarter, the retailer, which operates Sears and Kmart, continued to offer traditional promotional discounts and spend on advertising, getting plenty of exposure from the popular "Ship My Pants" and "Big Gas Savings" ads. It also took a hit as more Shop Your Way members redeemed points. The retailer reported a $194 million loss during the second quarter as same-store sales fell 1.5 percent.

Liz Dunn, consumer sector senior analyst at Macquarie Capital, looks at the three things J.C. Penney needs to do in the next six months.

PayPal, credit card processors and other financial institutions began reporting sellers’ monthly sales transactions to the IRS as part of a new law, and now the IRS is using that information to target small retailers. According to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service sent 20,000 letters to small businesses based on the new data questioning whether they were under-reporting their business income. And it reports that tax accountants are expecting the program to expand.

A leaked memo from Forever 21 shows the fast-fashion apparel retailer plans to cut the hours of some full-time employees and reclassify them as part-time, starting Sunday. The move has raised speculation that it was done was to get under the threshold for providing healthcare benefits for full-time workers under Obamacare.  

According to a recent article in Inc., women fill just 8 percent of the leadership roles in technology startup companies. That's a small number. However, what's fascinating to me is that the women who do fill C-suite roles in technology tend to gravitate toward e-commerce. From Fab.com's COO Beth Ferreira to the women who founded Birchbox (Hayley Barna and Katia Beauchamp) to Gilt's CEO Michelle Peluso, more and more women are rising to top leadership positions in e-commerce. Coincidence? I don't think so.