Retail Stores

A Tacoma, Wash. man apparently angry that a friend's hardware store isn't doing well has been charged in an ill-conceived arson attempt at a Home Depot store in Seattle, reports the Seattle Post Intelligencer. Prosecutors say Randol W. Stebner, 53, started two small fires near the Aurora Avenue North superstore on May 14. Stebner admitted to lighting the fires and said he would do it again, according to court documents obtained by the newspaper. 

U.S. mall owners have contemplated for years what they might do if aged and troubled retailer Sears Holdings Corp. closes many of its stores, leaving malls with gaping vacancies and few easy alternatives for filling them.

Talbots Inc. said Friday it will actively explore other strategic alternatives after Sycamore Partners said it won't buy the retailer. A May 5 exclusivity agreement with Sycamore Partners has expired and Talbots said it remains open to pursuing a transaction with the firm at $3.05 a share. Sycamore "informed the company that it is not prepared to execute a transaction at this time," Talbots said. 

With J.C. Penney’s new pricing structure echoing that of Wal-Mart’s EDLP model, the most recent Retail Ratings Reports from BIGinsight indicates both retailers could face challenges when it comes to the women’s clothing category. For years Wal-Mart has led Kohl’s in the category, however, in November of 2011 Kohl’s surpassed the discounter and the two have been tangling for the top position ever since.

Austin, Texas posted the highest percentage of retail rental growth in the country during the first quarter of 2012 with an increase of 3.4 percent, according to Cassidy Turley, a national real estate services provider. Charlotte, N.C. came in second with 2.9 percent growth and Oakland-East Bay, Calif. came in third with 2.7 percent growth. Nationally, Cassidy Turley reports the first quarter of this year saw the first decline in retail vacancies since the recession.

British luxury brand Burberry hopes to insulate itself against global economic headwinds by investing in bigger stores in major cities such as London, Chicago and Hong Kong that are popular both with tourists and the super rich. Reporting another jump in profit on Wednesday, Burberry said it would invest up to 200 million pounds ($316 million) in the business over the coming year with about one-third of it going towards larger format outlets, including a relocated store on London's Regent Street and a rebuild in Chicago. 

There are a steady stream of retailers from H&M to Levi's forging partnerships with outside brands and designers. Some of the most high profile collaborations have come from the aisles of Target, where the company has been partnering with designers since 1999.

TJX Companies has been working to re-establish itself as an online retailer several years after shutting down its e-commerce operations. As the parent company of T.J. Maxx, Marshalls and Home Goods, the company operates more than 2,900 store locations. The retailer is making investments to support future growth including supply chain and systems, e-commerce, and store growth infrastructure.

You'll be hard-pressed to find an uglier quarterly report out of the retail sector than what J.C. Penney (JCP) delivered on Tuesday night. Investors figured that new CEO Ron Johnson's "Fair and Square" pricing strategy wouldn't be a hit right away, but no one assumed that the recently remodeled department store chain would be this earnings season's biggest disaster.

J.C. Penney lost $163 million in the first quarter. Sales skidded 20 percent; traffic slowed 10 percent; conversion and average customer spending both fell 5 percent. Grim results indeed. But don't expect CEO Ron Johnson, President Michael Francis and the rest of the crew to throw in the towel on their retail revolution plan just yet.