Retail Stores

After years of struggling to maintain sales, Barnes & Noble may be looking to revamp its image, starting with smaller stores. The Wall Street Journal reports the nation’s largest bookstore chain is considering a new store prototype after facing a fifth straight quarter of sales declines. New CEO Ronald Boire says any changes would be in response…

Macy's will close 35 to 40 underperforming stores, around 5 percent of its total locations, the department store chain announced Tuesday. The stores, slated to be shuttered in early 2016, will be identified at a later date, said the company with corporate offices in Cincinnati and New York. Annual sales volume at the stores, "net of sales…

Haggen says it's filed for protection from creditors while it tightens its business into a smaller, profitable footprint, signaling a surprisingly early demise for its unlikely bid to become a West Coast grocery superpower. The Bellingham, Wash.-based grocer on Tuesday filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition with a U.S. court in Delaware. Haggen says its creditors…

Gap had another month of disappointing sales. This time it blamed this year's late Labor Day holiday. The big holiday weekend will count toward September's results rather than August, as it has the past three years. Without benefit of Labor Day, Gap reported an overall 3 percent drop in August sales from the prior year, with…

The decision to stop tobacco sales at all of its drugstores a year ago caused people to buy 1% fewer packs of cigarettes in 13 states, CVS Health says in a new study out Thursday. The new study compared total sales of tobacco products at all types of stores in the 13 states where CVS…

Wal-Mart said it would reopen in late October to early November five U.S. stores whose closure had prompted a union to file a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, claiming the retailer was retaliating against workers for organizing. Wal-Mart will start hiring for the stores in Texas, Oklahoma, Florida and California, and will encourage previous…

GameStop, which acquired ThinkGeek owner Geeknet in June, has announced plans to open ThinkGeek's first branded physical store in Florida on Sept. 25. More are planned, too, with each boasting what's described as a "modern, bright, open floor plan" and an array of merchandise spanning games, films, TV and comics.

Borrowing from the playbook of upscale grocers such as Whole Foods Market and Wegmans, Target is aiming to serve alcohol right in the store. Angie Thompson, a Target spokesperson, confirmed that the Minneapolis-based retailer applied in August for liquor licenses to sell and serve alcohol at a planned store near Chicago’s Navy Pier. If approved, it…

Back to School (BTS) represents big business for retailers as consumers spend billions of dollars preparing kids for the upcoming school year. The second largest shopping season, BTS also serves as the transition into the all-important fall/winter product line. While retailers will certainly be judged on their BTS revenue, industry leaders have another, equally important…

Macy's debuted its new discount concept called Backstage last week, offering up a sneak peak of the department store chain’s off-price format. Is this a case of too little too late, or the end of the era? Perhaps a little of both. Macy’s Backstage is a discount outlet much like Nordstrom Rack, Off Fifth by Saks Fifth…