As CEO of a 135-year-old business, Diane Sullivan was looking for new ideas for growth and a fresh take on men's shoes for Brown Shoe Company. She thinks she may have found it in Jack Erwin, an upstart New York City-based online shoe brand that just started selling its footwear last year. Brown Shoe, the public company behind Famous Footwear stores, Shoes.com and brands such as Dr. Scholl's, is leading a $9 million investment in Jack Erwin.
Sheplers, a western-wear retailer, on Friday reported it had been victimized by a data breach in which customer credit card information was exposed to hackers. The company said the breach involved credit cards used at its stores between June 11 and Sept. 4. Sheplers said it doesn't believe the incident affected its online store. The company said it's working with law enforcement investigators, but "at the present time, we believe it's safe to use payment cards at Sheplers." According to the company, the customer information at risk includes names, account numbers for credit and debit cards, and card expiration dates.
Struggling big-box retailers Sears and Toys"R"Us, which sell merchandise easily bought from a mobile device, are using a surprising tactic to forestall death: turning their vast real estate holdings into cash-generating piggybanks. Toys"R"Us, collectively owned by private equity firms Bain Capital, KKR and Vornado Realty Trust, is the latest to offer a glimpse into how a floundering national retailer is morphing into a landlord. On Sept. 17, Toys"R"Us disclosed that it will open Claire's branded shops in 100 locations scattered across the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Austria and Spain.
Customers are driven by the need for instant gratification more than ever, expecting boundless product options at their fingertips and 24-hour (or less) delivery models. To compete with bellwethers like Amazon.com and even Google, companies are exchanging traditional distribution strategies for something more flexible, focusing less on labor and production and more on inventory and proximity to consumer marketplaces. Retailers and distributors, however, cannot make these adjustments in isolation. In order to successfully transform their sales and operations, organizations must modify their back-office tax and accounting practices accordingly.
More Toys"R"Us stores will feature in-location Claire's shops, broadening its offerings for tween girls beyond toys and video games. The companies said Wednesday they would expand their partnership to about 100 stores in Europe and 12 locations in the U.S. by the end of the year after a successful European pilot program. The company's Times Square and FAO Schwartz stores in New York will debut their Claire's shops this week; the rest of the U.S. spots will open by the end of October in locations from Pennsylvania to California.
In an alternate universe, RadioShack would rule the world, supplying all of your electronics needs from computers to cellphones, and even making them. But in this world, RadioShack is almost bankrupt, having missed almost every opportunity to be the center of the technology revolution. Last week, the electronics retailer announced its latest quarterly loss — $119.4 million — and said that it might not have enough capital to continue as a "going concern." The announcement was a surprise to no one. RadioShack, despite some terrific marketing, has been in turnaround mode for almost two decades.
Our marketing experts will discuss key online and offline merchandising best practices and strategies.
The retail sector is in flux, with established players like Wal-Mart (besides studying Bezos) vowing to open smaller, more intimate stores. At certain companies, "omnichannel" is the way of the future; at other chains, it's a four-letter-word. And still other retailers are closely watching Alibaba's ballyhooed entrance into the North American market. What to believe? What to dispel? What retail strategies will work and what should you discard? Here, I dispel the top five retail myths so that you can spend time doing what really matters: supercharging your chain's profitable growth:
Retail sales rose broadly in August, which should ease some concerns about consumer spending and support expectations for sturdy growth in the third quarter. The Commerce Department said Friday retail sales increased 0.6 percent last month as Americans bought automobiles and a range of other goods after an upwardly revised 0.3 percent gain in July. "It still paints the consumers muddling along," said Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James in St. Petersburg, Fla. "The general message on the economy is that it's improving but we still have a lot of slack to take up."
Christmas is still more than three months away, but the game is already on in the toy aisle with both Wal-Mart and Toys"R"Us publishing some of their holiday toy lists Wednesday. Winning the game for Toys"R"Us isn't just about picking the hit product, it's also about proving there's viable room for it to exist and win as a specialty toy retailer, as other specialty chains from Best Buy to Barnes & Noble also guard their respective foothold against rivals from Wal-Mart to Amazon.com.
