Management

With very few other retailers offering layaway programs, Kmart has a point of difference in the market. Now, the retailer is looking to draw even further attention to that difference and bring in new customers by promoting a 5 percent discount on layaway purchases made for back-to-school. To qualify for the discount, Kmart customers put down $15 or 10 percent of the purchase amount, whichever is greater, and pay a $5 fee. The offer is good until August 18. The program is also available to online shoppers.

Wal-Mart announced it's opposed to the proposed settlement of a civil antitrust lawsuit against Visa, MasterCard and their card-issuing banks. “Wal-Mart, along with a growing number of consumer groups and merchants, is disappointed in the proposed credit card interchange fee settlement,” the company said in a statement. “The proposed settlement would not structurally change the broken market or prohibit credit card networks from continually increasing hidden swipe fees, which already cost consumers tens of billions of dollars each year.”

J.C. Penney CEO Ron Johnson is going all in with his bid to remake the customer experience at the century-old department store retailer. A mobile point-of-sale deployment beginning this fall is just the first step in an ambitious plan involving storewide use of RFID to eliminate traditional cash wrap stations, allowing anywhere, anytime checkout, including self-checkout, by 2014. "J.C. Penney will be moving to a 100 percent [item-level] RFID implementation by Feb. 1, 2013," said Johnson, speaking last week at the Fortune magazine Brainstorm conference in Aspen, CO. "We'll be doing something that no other retailer has done completely." 

The American private equity group TPG Capital has made a $715 million takeover offer for Billabong International, the Australian surfwear company announced Tuesday. It's the second time this year that TPG of Texas has tried to buy Billabong. The surfwear company said TPG International, a unit of TPG Capital, was offering 694.6 million Australian dollars in cash for all of its outstanding shares.

As sales declines deepen, teen retailer Wet Seal is firing CEO Susan McGalla without a replacement for her. McGalla had been Wet Seal's CEO since January 2011, and had signed an employment contract with the company through August 2014. Her departure is effective immediately, and the company said Monday that it's starting a search for a new CEO. In the meantime, the company's chairman, president and chief financial officer are overseeing Wet Seal.

Thus far, the dramatic makeover of J.C. Penney has hardly been smooth sailing. The overhaul, in which coupons and nonstop sales have been replaced with lower everyday prices, has resulted in confusion among consumers and months of subpar sales, as well as the recent ouster of a top executive. Nonetheless, J.C. Penney CEO Ron Johnson is sticking with the plan to revolutionize a tired old brand — and perhaps retail as a whole. Speaking at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference, Johnson, a retail superstar who spent years building up Target and the Apple Store, made one eye-opening comment after another.

This week, Virgin Mobile is opening its first branded retail outlet in Chicago's upscale Lincoln Park neighborhood. Unlike most wireless retail stores, the Virgin Mobile store presents a relaxed atmosphere, with comfortable chairs for customers to sit in while employees activate their new phones, charging stations, a phonograph where people are encouraged to play records (supplied by a neighborhood record store down the street). The feel, according to Ron Faris, Virgin Mobile's chief marketing officer, is more akin to that neighbor than of another big-box retailer further down the street.

Best Buy plans to hire 500 new Geek Squad staffers. The move comes some two weeks after the retailer said it would lay off 600 existing workers in the tech support arm of its business as it looked to focus the group less on basic installation services and more on remote tech consulting. It also comes as Verizon announced it was partnering with Geek Squad to offer services to meet the information technology requirements of small and mid-size businesses across the country. 

Daffy's, a 19-store chain that sells discount designer brands in the U.S. Northeast, said it will shutter its business in the next few months, citing an uncertain economy and weak consumer spending. "The process will entail the gradual closing of Daffy's stores and the liquidation of its merchandise," Michael McMullan, a Daffy's spokesman, wrote in an emailed statement today. Daffy's, which doesn't have a final date for the closure of the business, will continue to employ its associates and give them pay and benefits for at least 60 days, McMullan said. Daffy's has about 1,300 employees.

Looks like American Apparel may be designing the uniforms for some proud red, white and blue-wearing Olympians … who aren’t American. In a conversation about clothing manufacturing and national pride that has come to a head because of the Ralph Lauren “Made in China” U.S. Olympic uniform controversy, American Apparel's Dov Charney has now thrown his voice into the melee. The New York Post is reporting that American Apparel is in talks to design Russia’s Olympic uniforms.