Management

A former Apple retail employee has fired a departing salvo at Apple CEO Tim Cook in the form of an email outlining many internal developments at Apple retail stores and the employee's dissatisfaction with those developments. The email, reproduced at the employee's website, describes a devolution of the internal organization and treatment of Apple Retail employees in recent years.

Lou D’Ambrosio, chief executive officer of Sears, said creatively combining technology with spending on stores is the best way to turn around the largest U.S. department store chain. On Dec. 27, Sears announced it was closing as many as 120 locations after same-store sales slipped 5.2 percent in the eight weeks ended Dec. 25.

In a hiring campaign for an Ikea megastore in Australia, agency The Monkeys decided to focus on the retailer's customers and came up with an idea which cleverly suited the brand. Pieces of paper resembling its standard assembly instructions but with “career instructions” to “assemble your future” were inserted into the packaging of flat-pack products sold at nearby locations.

After a slew of online orders were cancelled in November and December when Best Buy couldn’t keep up with demand, the company issued the following statement: “What was wrong is that there was an unacceptable delay between order confirmations and cancellations, and for that we are very sorry,” said Susan Busch, senior director of Best Buy’s public relations.

Last week, RIS News brought you the top 10 retailers to work for based on the Good Company Retail Index in which 52 of the nation's biggest retailers are ranked by how they treat employees, customers and the planet. This week we present the retailers that didn't quite make the grade — ranking 42 to 52 — or the bottom 10 retailers to work for.

When Kmart acquired Sears in 2005, Chairman Edward Lampert said the new company would have the geographic reach and scale to compete with Wal-Mart.

A homeless dog in Wisconsin named L.L.Bean has found a new home in Maine, thanks to the company he's named after. The Dunn County Humane Society in Wisconsin received a call from an employee at L.L.Bean's Freeport headquarters after a local TV station ran a story featuring an 80-pound Coonhound named L.L.Bean that had been in the shelter for more than a year.

Despite being presented with a petition containing 200,000 signatures urging it to apologize and reinstate its advertising on the TLC reality series "All American Muslim," Lowe's is standing firm in its decision to pull its ads. Several clergy members descended on Lowe's headquarters Dec. 20, armed with the petition.

There might be more women working in retail, but they're getting paid a lot less than their male counterparts. A recent study conducted by the Retail Action Project and the City University of New York found that on average, in New York City women are making $9.77 per hour while men are making $10.64 per hour for the same job.

Family Dollar Stores has named Paul White its executive vice president, chief merchandising officer. White will report to Michael Bloom, president and COO. White joined Family Dollar in 2011 as senior vice president, apparel, home and seasonal. Before joining the company, he served as president, CEO and director of Goody’s, where he refocused the merchandising and marketing strategies on the core customer while leading the company’s exit from bankruptcy.