Management

Rosalia Mera, a seamstress who co-founded a clothing store in northwestern Spain that grew into one of the world's largest retail chains, has died at the age of 69. She was Spain's richest woman and a major stakeholder in Inditex SA, the owner of the Zara chain that expanded rapidly across the globe over the past several decades. Inditex issued a statement Friday confirming her death but didn't provide more details and declined comment via email. Spanish media widely reported that Mera suffered a stroke while on vacation on the Mediterranean island of Menorca and died Thursday night.

Jos. A. Bank Clothiers on Tuesday came under criticism from BeaconLight Capital LLC, which owns more than 1 percent of the men’s apparel chain. In an open letter to the company’s board, the investment manager called for a reorganization of the retailer's board and return of cash to shareholders, preferably through buybacks. The letter stated that "we are convinced that tremendous value is trapped inside the company due to the absence of a credible capital allocation policy, an insular insider board of directors, poorly aligned management incentives and the company's refusal to communicate with shareholders."

Though Oprah Winfrey was the one who felt slighted by a sales woman while shopping in Switzerland, the media mogul is apologizing after what she called an incident of racial profiling, saying she's "sorry" that a frenzy emerged for the country, and the store. "I think that incident in Switzerland was just an incident in Switzerland," Winfrey, 59, told reporters on Monday night. "I'm really sorry that it got blown up. I purposefully did not mention the name of the store. I'm sorry that I said it was Switzerland."

"Consumers had a promising start to the third quarter. Now let's keep it going, please," said Jennifer Lee, economist at BMO Capital Markets. Retail sales overall rose a sluggish 0.2 percent in July, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. Ahead of the report, economists surveyed by MarketWatch expected sales to rise 0.3 percent, and 0.4 percent stripping out the automobile category. But most of that weakness was due to a steep drop in automobile sales after strong gains in May and June. 

Hedge fund manager William Ackman has resigned from the board of J.C. Penney, bringing an end to an unusually public rift among directors that had threatened the struggling company's turnaround efforts. Ackman resigned Monday, J.C. Penney said in a statement Tuesday. The board is bringing aboard former Federated Department Stores Inc. — now Macy's — executive Ronald Tysoe and said it will name another new director in the future. The board also declared its "overwhelming support" for Chairman Thomas Engibous and Chief Executive Myron "Mike" Ullman, both of whom Mr. Ackman had argued should be replaced.

Best Buy is back in the news again. Apparently it's updating its website to get on par with Amazon.com and other competitors selling consumer electronics and appliances. While the company acknowledges it will take some time to get there, it has bigger issues in the terrestrial world. The company has a LOT of stores that have fallen into irrelevancy. New CEO Herbert Joly has taken some steps to undo damage done over the past seven years, but there's a lot more work to be done. If the chain can't return its stores to relevancy, it's in serious trouble. 

Struggling retailer J.C. Penney is on the hunt for a new CEO. CNBC's Courtney Reagan and Scott Wapner discuss.

Wal-Mart has fended off the best efforts of organized labor for decades, but it appears likely the company will need to elevate its game after several major unions joined forces this week. The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), long a thorn in Wal-Mart's side, has rejoined the AFL-CIO, the organizations announced this week. The move comes eight years after UFCW and six other unions left the AFL-CIO, a move which weakened organized labor just as unions were becoming less relevant in many sectors of the economy.

J.C. Penney has hired an executive from the mac-and-cheese world to reconnect with its middle-income shoppers. The beleaguered department store on Monday named Kraft Foods Inc. executive Debra Berman as senior vice president of marketing to help revitalize the struggling brand, filling a void in the company that remained for 14 months. Penney is trying to win back customers who fled during a

Apple's search for a new head of its retail stores is dragging into its 10th month, at a time when the stores need extra attention: The company recently reported its first drop in store sales in at least four years. In 2001, Apple changed the retail game when it threw open the doors to the Apple Store's sleek and bright, modern interiors-completely different from electronics warehouses of the day stuffed with accessories and cords. The stores