Personnel

They compete tooth and nail to draw customers to their Midtown flagship stores, but Macy's and J.C. Penney are teaming up to block the thievery of organized crooks. The rivals have joined more than 100 companies and the NYPD to form an alliance that will be known as the Metropolitan Organized Retail Crime Alliance. Its objective is to improve retail stores’ security efforts by sharing intelligence on crews of bandits, scams and ripoffs. Target, Home Depot and Rite Aid have also signed up for the crime-busting venture. Computer giant Apple is poised to jump onboard soon, sources said.

Toys"R"Us, the world's largest specialty toy store chain, on Tuesday announced plans to hire 45,000 workers at its 877 U.S. stores and distribution centers for the 2014 holidays, more than doubling its total workforce. The jobs include sales associates, stock crew and omnichannel fulfillment teams, as well as distribution center workers and department managers. The news comes days after rival Wal-Mart announced it's hiring 60,000 seasonal workers and offering additional hours to its current employees for the holidays.

GNC Holdings has appointed former Dick's Sporting Goods executive Jeffrey R. Hennion as executive vice president, chief marketing and e-commerce officer, and former Office Depot executive Daisy Vanderlinde as chief human resource officer. Additionally, Carl Seletz, GNC's senior vice president of international business development, will assume the additional responsibility of leading the company's domestic and international franchise operations.

Website "flash sales" are fueling lightning-fast growth for online retailer Zulily, and central Ohio has been one of the biggest beneficiaries. Zulily was founded in 2010 in Seattle and sells apparel, decor items and other merchandise via short-term "events." Sales are growing at warp speed, going from nothing several years ago to a projected $1.2 billion this year. As a result of the spectacular growth, Zulily has been adding employees at a fast clip. In Columbus, a market it quietly entered in 2012 with a distribution center in Obetz, the company has grown to 1,110 employees.  

At CVS, it doesn't pay to be really good at your job. The nation's second-largest drugstore chain adjusts its annual raises to how much an employee makes. The higher your salary, the lower your raise. The top workers at CVS stores — those earning the highest hourly wage for their job classification — are "red lined" by the company and receive no raises at all. I can say that because I have my hands on an internal CVS document — the company's 2014 wage management guidelines — which spells out the pay ranges for different positions and caps on raises.

Ikea, the iconic home furnishings chain, plans to announce Thursday that it will raise its minimum wage by 17 percent, joining a growing national movement to boost the pay of low-wage workers. The Gap, whose stores include Gap and Old Navy, also has announced plans to increase its pay floor this year. The privately held Ikea plans to raise its average minimum wage from

The bad weather that hurt Bed Bath & Beyond during the fourth quarter may have abated, but the company’s sales still grew at a slower than expected pace during the first quarter and caused profits to come in toward the low end of expectations. The company said sales for its first quarter ended May 31 increased 1.7 percent to $2.657 billion but same store sales grew 0.4 percent, well below the 1 percent to 2.5 percent estimate the company had provided back in April when it reported

Avon Products said Monday that it will cut another 600 jobs as it tries to reduce its spending. The company said most of the eliminated jobs will be in its corporate organization and its North American business. Avon had 36,700 employees at the end of 2013. Avon Products Inc. is the world's largest direct seller of cosmetics, but its sales have been steadily dropping. Under Sheri McCoy, who became CEO in 2012, Avon has cut costs, slashed thousands of jobs and left unprofitable markets. 

Dov Charney, the controversial CEO of American Apparel, was ousted Wednesday by the company's board of directors, who said the action "grew out of an ongoing investigation into alleged misconduct." The board voted to replace Charney as chairman and "notified him of its intent to terminate his employment as president and CEO for cause," according to a statement. "This isn't easy, but we felt the need to do what we did for the sake of the company," Allan Mayer, the company's newly appointed co-chairman, told The Times. 

Just six months after landing a big round of investment that valued One Kings Lane at $900 million, the online home decor retailer is laying off between 75 and 100 people, according to a person familiar with the plans. Some employees were notified of the cuts on Tuesday, this person said. The cuts will eliminate between 15 percent and 20 percent of the staff. A One Kings Lane spokeswoman declined to comment. In January, the online retailer announced a $112 million investment round led by Mousse Partners, bringing total funding to more than $220 million.