Merchandising

Luxury purveyor Neiman Marcus has unveiled its annual holiday catalog chock-full of gifts from the relatively affordable to the enormously expensive (and goofy). Among the highlights — a posh henhouse, inspired by France's Versailles Palace, for the world's most pampered chickens. Priced at $100,000 (delivery not included), the deal includes a library full of books, an "elegant" chandelier and a custom-built garden. "You've always fancied yourself a farmer — now thanks to Heritage Hen Farm, you're doing it in the fanciest way possible," says the catalog.

The scariest part of Halloween shopping isn't the pop-up stores full of movie tie-ins and slutty tollbooth collector costumes dotting the nation's half-dead shopping centers, but the tombstones of retailers past hidden by their temporary tarp banners. Halloween is about as good a time as any to take U.S. retail's preholiday temperature. For some unfortunate retailers, the result comes back as cold as a corpse. Even as the National Association of Realtors predicts retail vacancy rates will improve from 12 percent to 11 percent this year, some stores just aren't cutting it.

Toys"R"Us has launched a new digital entertainment service, Toys"R"Us Movies, which provides families instant access to movies and TV shows for kids. Developed in partnership with digital company Rovi, the service features more than 4,000 titles from leading entertainment companies including 20th Century Fox, Gaiam Vivendi Entertainment, Lionsgate/Summit, NBCUniversal, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, The Walt Disney Studios and Warner Bros. Entertainment.

There's a new outfit from Victoria's Secret's "Go East" collection that's getting blasted by critics for crossing the line from theme-wear to offensive. "Sexy Little Geisha" is a skimpy teddy, advertised as a "ticket to an exotic adventure … with flirty cutouts and Eastern-inspired florals." The lingerie company has since redirected users looking for the product's page, along with the rest of the "Go East" collection, to the site's main homepage.

Like eBay, Etsy has a list of items that its third-party merchants are prohibited from selling. The company spent the past several months conducting extensive research to maintain Etsy as a safe marketplace for both shoppers and sellers, and it looked into such issues as those surrounding the sale of human bones and the corrosive and toxic properties of mercury. While items on its prohibited list may be subject to legal regulations, some aren't, and, "when it comes right down to it, some things just aren't in the spirit of Etsy," the company wrote.

When Blake Mycoskie founded TOMS shoes six years ago, his pitch to consumers -- buy a pair and a second one will be donated to the needy -- helped start a phenomenon retail consultants call compassionate consumerism. Since then it has been imitated widely by established brands. Inspired by TOMS, Skechers USA Inc. (SKX) (SKX) introduced a brand called BOBS, as in Benefiting Others By Shoes. Urban Outfitters Inc. (URBN) (URBN) stores feature apparel by Threads for Thought, which gives part of its sales proceeds to humanitarian groups.

Online merchandising teams spend considerable time grouping items together and deciding which products to display when consumers enter specific search terms. Likewise, SEM teams dedicate resources to identify the keywords and phrases that lead to the most relevant landing pages. What these teams rarely do is share how their efforts can be integrated to produce results. 

A state judge on Friday temporarily blocked plans by Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia to sell certain branded products at J.C. Penney stores. The preliminary injunction was a win for Macy's, which has sued Martha Stewart Living claiming it has exclusive rights to sell certain Martha Stewart products including soft furnishings, dinnerware and cookware.

Nordstrom Inc., the upscale department-store chain, navigated the recession and its aftermath better than its peers. Yet even a company that has posted average sales growth of 14 percent for the past 10 quarters isn't immune to today's fast-changing retail environment.

PriceGrabber released results from its 2012 Back-to-School Shopping Forecast survey, showing more signs of economic recovery. The survey revealed that 63 percent of consumers plan to spend up to $500 this back-to-school shopping season (compared to 48 percent in 2011). Twenty percent of respondents plan to spend between $500 and $1,000, and 17 percent of shoppers said they don't have a back-to-school shopping budget this year.