Management

As retailers negotiate bankruptcies, competitors creeping into their margins, changing consumer behavior, and the prospect of a widely anticipated economic downturn, the imperative for survival has never been more keenly felt. The majority of retailers are stuck in survival mode. Of the 300 retail executives who assessed their organization’s overall health in BDO’s 2019 Retail…

The customer experience (CX) doesn’t start when the customer arrives. Internal processes, methods and data are the building blocks — and perhaps the limiters — on the quality of every customer experience. To deliver experiences that will win customers back time and time again, brands are digging deeper than polished scripts, perfected web pages and…

The North Face said this week that it will close its global headquarters and its 113 stores in the U.S. and Canada on Earth Day, April 22. The action is part of a campaign to make Earth Day an officially recognized holiday. The VF Corp.-owned brand said closing its doors on Earth Day will provide its employees ample opportunity…

Best Buy said on Monday that Corie Barry, the company’s chief financial and strategic transformation officer, will become its new CEO, effective June 11. Barry will be the first woman ever to serve in this role. In addition, she will join Best Buy's board of directors, which will expand to 13 directors. Hubert Joly, who is…

J.Crew Group Inc. is considering bringing its Madewell business to the public markets in the wake of rival Levi Strauss & Co.’s own $623 million offering. Madewell, the denim focused starlet of the J.Crew family, could go public as soon as the second half of this year, the company announced Thursday. Struggling parent company J.Crew also named Michael Nicholson as interim chief…

Amazon.com's CEO Jeff Bezos called on other retailers to match Amazon’s benefits and $15 minimum wage in his annual letter to shareholders filed Thursday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. "Today I challenge our top retail competitors (you know who you are!) to match our employee benefits and our $15 minimum wage," Bezos wrote.…

Signet Jewelers Limited, the world's largest retailer of diamond jewelry, said last week that it's planning to close 150 underperforming stores during its current fiscal year and that by fiscal year's end it plans to reduce its store base by 13 percent over a three-year period, according to a company press release. Signet, which has 3,300 stores…

Retailers are under pressure like never before. The continued growth of online stores such as Amazon.com coupled with rising brick-and-mortar store rents are creating an unforgiving market. It seems that every week another big brand announces it's closing stores or going into liquidation. The effects ripple across the industry, as the loss of an anchor…

Sears is opening stores again. The department store chain that has closed hundreds of Sears and Kmart locations over the past few years announced this week that it will open three “Sears Home & Life” stores in May. The stores will be located in Anchorage, AK; Lafayette, LA; and Overland Park, KS. The new  stores will offer…

Target Corp will raise its U.S. minimum wage to $13 an hour in June, from $12 currently, increasing its payroll costs and putting new pressure on rival Walmart to attract retail workers in a tight labor market. Minneapolis-based Target employs over 300,000 workers and runs 1,845 stores in the United States. The company is investing…