Merchandising

In an attempt to win over fashionable young women, J.C. Penney Co. is going to try running with a faster crowd. This week, the Plano, Texas-based retailer unveiled an unconventional collaboration with Mango MNG Holding SL, the closely-held Barcelona chain known for whipping up cutting edge looks that go from design studio to store shelves in as little as four weeks.

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The designer-level racks at select Saks Fifth Avenue stores are expanding. Beginning this fall, the options for women looking for sizes 16 and 18 will include more high-fashion styles.

Von Maur, a family-run department store from Iowa, is stepping into the fast-fashion business. The 138-year-old merchant plans to unveil a concept store aimed at young women called Dry Goods.

This summer, why not chat about the strength of your merchandise’s kindle factor and see if there aren’t ways you can turn up the inspiration intensity of your product offering?

Forever 21, a clothing chain that attracts many under-21 customers with its inexpensive, trendy fashions, is being questioned about its motives in choosing a select group of states to carry its recently launched maternity line. The line, called Love 21 Maternity, is currently available in Arizona, Alaska, California, Utah and Texas.

Retailers (or any marketer or publisher) seeking higher conversion rates must adopt an “innovation attitude” to guide them amid a fertile landscape for new ideas, advanced technology and customer behavior learnings. So advised speaker after speaker at last week's Shop.org Merchandise Summit in Huntington Beach, Calif.

Walmart's strategy is evolving, and would have evolved regardless of what managers are in place. "Taking merchandise out of the Action Alley and providing clear sight lines has been a successful strategy," Spokesman David Tovar said in an e-mail, but added, "We are constantly listening to our customers and some have told us they liked seeing the rollbacks on merchandise in the aisles. .... We have given more autonomy to our store managers to make the decisions on what is right for their customers."

To “live curious” as a merchant means to dig deeper, pay more attention to details and patiently sift through the mundane to find the remarkable. And sometimes it means making the mundane simply remarkable.

A host of retailers are stretching their brands into uncharted product categories and into new lines of business. With store expansion on the back burner, retailers are turning to fresh avenues for growth, betting that their brand equity will carry over to new product categories.