Management

American Eagle Outfitters' CEO James O'Donnell will step down Saturday in a move that was expected. He will be replaced by former Levi's executive Robert Hanson. O'Donnell, 70, said early last year he planned to retire. Hanson was named as his successor in November after a lengthy search.

Gilt Groupe CEO Kevin Ryan said up to 90 of the company's 900 employees were being laid off. The departures include John Auerbach, who led the company's Park & Bond men's apparel site, and Nathan Richardson, who led the company's Gilt City daily deals operation.

J.C. Penney is reportedly planning layoffs that could affect all its stores. The department store chain is cutting positions that involve retagging and putting up temporary signs, according to the New York Post. The layoffs are expected to hit all 1,200 U.S. stores.

Results of the e-tailing group’s 14th Annual Mystery Shopping Study, conducted during the fourth quarter of 2011, recognizes nine merchants out of the 100 benchmarked for excelling at online customer service.

Gap says the president of its Old Navy brand has resigned, but the company also has secured a former merchandising employee to serve as a consultant to its struggling namesake brand. Tom Wyatt will leave Old Navy Feb. 3. The company named two senior executives to assume his duties while the company searches for a permanent replacement.

The National Retail Federation's Annual Convention & Expo wrapped up yesterday with a roundtable discussion on leadership. Lending their expert advice were seasoned retail leaders Stephen Sadove, chairman and CEO of Saks, who moderated the discussion; Marty Albertson, chairman of Guitar Center; Brian Devine, chairman of PETCO; Angela Ahrendts, CEO of Burberry; and Brenda Malloy, managing director and global retail practice leader, Russell Reynolds Associates.

Charming Shoppes announced that Elizabeth Crystal has joined Lane Bryant as senior vice president and chief marketing officer. Crystal will develop and lead the brand positioning, marketing and advertising strategies for the Lane Bryant and Cacique brands.

The CEO of Winn-Dixie is stepping down as the Florida-based supermarket chain merges with Bi-Lo. CEO Peter Lynch told employees in a letter that he'll stay up to another 120 days.

Belk will soon have new capabilities to improve customer satisfaction across its 303 stores in 16 states by using solutions from Teradata. The department store has selected multiple Teradata Data Warehouse Appliances and the Teradata Retail Logical Data Model to build a new integrated database-driven analytics environment.

Best Buy's failure to fulfill many online orders in time for Christmas exposed ongoing problems that haven't been resolved. Best Buy is often a target of complaints about late and unfulfilled orders and is "the only major store who routinely has these kinds of issues," says Brad Wilson, founder of BradsDeals.com.