The happenings at Casual Male Retail Group, the largest “big and tall” specialty retailer in the country for men, perfectly illustrate what is happening in the overall retail industry right now. Canton, Mass.-based CMRG, which operates nearly 500 stores across North America, has three chains at three different price points: Rochester Clothing, a high-end concept; Casual Male XL, its...
Retail Industry Archive
March 2009
A new PricewaterhouseCoopers/Retail Forward study Retailing 2015: New Frontiers predicts that the immediate future will continue to be rough for home furnishings and housewares retailers, but that generalization might not be universally true, and especially not in the case of Kirkland’s. The study argues that the housing crisis will continue to hurt home retailing, which will lag a ...
Kohl’s enjoyed a 48% leap in Internet sales in 2008, it revealed in its 2009 annual report filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, joining Macy’s and Saks among retailers who have seen online success despite the recession. In total, Kohl’s booked electronic commerce sales of $356 million last year, or about two percent of the $16.4 billion in total revenues it posted....
While some retailers can cut costs and wait for the economy to turn around, austerity moves, no matter if well intentioned and executed, won’t position Gap for recovery as its three major divisions have lost their connections to customers. In its latest move to save money, Gap is reducing the size of its board from 13 to 10 members while cutting the 2009 cash retainer and stock compensation...
Macy’s is opening a new kind of store for a new kind of mall. The unique store concept, officially debuting today in Gilbert, Ariz., an affluent suburb of Phoenix, is a prototype that operates on one level – no elevators or escalators – over 120,000 square feet, but it won’t be unique for long. Macy’s plans to roll out three stores built to the same design this year as better fit to...
Consumers may not be ready to beat down the doors of their local retailers yet, but they are a little more convinced they’ll hold onto their jobs, which may set the stage for a turn around in purchasing intention. In February, 26 percent of people responding to the NPD Group’s Economy Tracker study were not concerned about their jobs or income, 40 percent were somewhat concerned and 34...
Jamba Juice management hopes that adding solid-food items to its 733 stores across the country will help turn around weak sales and negative earnings. Executives aren’t revealing all of their future plans yet, but make whatever they have up their sleeves sounds significant. James White, the chain’s president and CEO, said during the company’s fourth-quarter conference call that Jamba has...
Is a private label price war in the making? Perhaps, if Kroger lives up to suggestions that it will drop prices on private label groceries as commodity costs slide. Not that everyone is predicting immediate intensification of private label price rivalries. Speaking at Reuters Food and Agriculture Summit this week, Andrea Thomas, Wal-Mart’s senior vice president of private brands, discussed...
Investor William Ackman has been after Target to heave off the property it owns and its remaining credit card business to boost the company’s share price, and he has assembled a slate of nominees for the company’s board who seem like the guys who could do the job. They are, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing: William Ackman, Pershing Square Capital Management founder,...
The growing range of formats Wal-Mart operates is gaining two additions both dedicated to Hispanic consumers, a group many mainstream retailers have had a hard time winning over. The Financial Times first reported that Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club would develop their own Hispanic store variations. The Wal-Mart version will debut in converted Neighborhood Market locations, one in Houston and one in...
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Industry Transcripts by Seeking Alpha
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