Merchandising

Ikea thought it could discontinue a shelf popular with record collectors without causing much commotion. Now it has to face the music. Ikea plans to stop selling its iconic "EXPEDIT" shelf and replace it with a different wall unit, company Spokesperson Janice Simonsen told the Huffington Post. That news, first mentioned on Ikea Germany's Facebook page, has set off an internet cacophony, fueled mostly by vinyl record collectors, who say that the EXPEDIT has been the perfect shelf for storing records (among other things) for over a generation.

Home Depot and Lowe's are under fire for selling pesticides that some believe are partly to blame for killing billions of the nation's honeybees. Petitions with thousands of signatures are being delivered to the home-improvement retailers demanding they stop selling the pesticides along with any plants that have been treated with them. "There's a growing body of science indicating that the pesticides are a key factor in recent global bee deaths," said Lisa Archer, director of the food and technology program at the environmental group Friends of the Earth.

CVS Caremark announced Wednesday that it will stop selling cigarettes and other tobacco products at its CVS/pharmacy stores by Oct. 1 of this year. The retailer said the move makes CVS/pharmacy the first chain of national pharmacies to take tobacco products off the shelves. "Ending the sale of cigarettes and tobacco products at CVS/pharmacy is the right thing for us to do for our customers and our company to help people on their path to better health," Larry J. Merlo, president and CEO of CVS Caremark, said in a statement. 

With the beginning of a new year comes all sorts of prompts from brands, infomercials and various social media toward new behaviors — e.g., weight loss, exercise, decluttering, eating healthy, simplifying your financial record keeping, etc. It's also a good time to ask yourself just how exactly your company helps its customers achieve their goals. Is your brand inspirational and motivational enough to turn your customers into doers? Let's look how one brand masters the art of motivation:

As the year comes to a close, take a moment and take stock of how often your products or services delighted your customers these past 12 months. Delight is a verb worth striving for. Here's how one brand lives it out year-round:

Hear that? It's the sound of another Urban Outfitters controversy brewing. The retailer is in hot water over $8 socks featuring the Hindu deity Ganesh. The "UO Exclusive" has prompted President of the Universal Society of Hinduism Rajan Zed to release a statement decrying the use of the religious symbol and asking Urban Outfitters to remove the socks from its site. "Lord Ganesh was highly revered in Hinduism and was meant to be worshipped in temples or home shrines and not to be wrapped around one's foot," the statement reads.

Kanye West publicly dissed Zappos.com during Bret Easton Eliss' podcast, saying, "I got into this giant argument with the head of Zappos that he's trying to tell me what I need to focus on. Meanwhile, he sells all this s-t product to everybody, his whole thing is based off of selling s-t product." Then, the online retailer had what's most likely the greatest comeback in history. The site put up a "S-t Product" page with multiple pictures of a toilet bowl and a plunger for sale for the flat rate of $100,000.

After saying earlier this year that it wouldn't give up its anti-Google advertising campaign, Microsoft is upping the ante by selling "Scroogled" T-shirts, hats and coffee mugs this holiday season. Like the rest of the campaign, created by former Hillary Clinton operative Mark Penn, the eight items for sale in Microsoft's online store target Google for what Microsoft feels is its unfair invasion of user privacy in the pursuit of profits. Here's some of what Microsoft is selling:

’Tis the season! Starbucks has brought seasonal coffee bliss back to its customers with its beloved Pumpkin Spice Latte (known as PSL by its fans). In just 10 years, Starbucks has created a fall tradition that translated into more than 200 million of these beverages being sold since it launched. Here's another product success story — perhaps a bit quieter, but one that also focuses on the branding and merchandising potential of one powerful verb: SAVOR.

Struggling fashion retailer Abercrombie & Fitch said it would expand its women's tops collection, offer larger sizes and more colors, and start selling shoes, in a bid to win back teen customers who have turned to trendier labels. A&F shares closed down 14 percent at $33.13 on Wednesday after the company reported a seventh quarterly fall in same-store sales in a row and warned of a tough holiday season. Analysts and investors have been looking for a new strategy from the company as its shares have now lost about 30 percent of their value this year.