Retail Industry Archive

Maxine Clark, founder and chief executive of Build-A-Bear Workshop, insisted on the first-quarter earnings call that disappointing financial results were not “representative of the value management was adding to the company,” as reflected in brand growth over the long-term. Performance metrics suggest, however, that recent initiatives to push lower-priced stuffed toys during these...

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Target Corp. management got a vote of confidence from a major investor as the California Public Employees’ Retirement System posted its proxy vote on the organization website, even as William Ackman and the candidates he backs for the retailer’s board went back on the attack with some enthusiasm and one noteworthy gaffe. CalPERs voted the Target management candidates to the board of...

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Like dollar stores and Wal-Mart, pet retail has been loping through the recession with its tail wagging. The consumer determination to bunker in for the recession’s duration clearly encompasses man’s best friend and other assorted members of the domestic menagerie. Not only are pets getting treated the same as people, they may be getting treated better. While consumers trade down to private...

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Kirkland’s has been something of a bellweather for how the recession is impacting the consumer, and it continues to benefit as folks focus on the home front under the pressure of the economic slowdown. The question is, can it keep its prospects from taking a dive when the economy begins to take off? For the quarter ended May 2, Kirkland’s posted a profit of $3.5 million, or 17...

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Sam’s Club has been making a particular effort to appeal to small business, and it’s getting smaller all the time. In this case, smaller has no negative connotation. In fact, it has the potential to enlarge Sam’s small business membership base considerably. On May 18, in an initiative timed to coincide with National Small Business Week, the retailer introduced a simplified application...

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Selling off the Target credit card business – or the half Target still owns – is part of William Ackman’s master plan for the retailer, one based on placing a slate of five candidates on the company’s board, himself included, but Gregg Steinhafel, Target’s CEO, took time in the company’s first quarter conference call yesterday to refute the investor’s claims that dumping that...

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Food, particularly high-margin perishables, helped make BJ’s first quarter a successful occasion, and one that demonstrated the warehouse club’s members are willing to pay for the privilege of shopping there. BJ’s differs from other club operators in its focus on food. The centrality of edibles makes the club chain more consumer oriented than its rival. So does its propensity to stock...

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Target’s management is feeling feisty and declaring itself willing to take on all comers whether Bill Ackman or Wal-Mart. The retailer got another boost going into the final phase of its proxy fight with Pershing Square honcho Ackman as its earnings beat analyst estimates and its credit card business registered a profit. Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel took time early in the company’s first...

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Home Depot beat analyst earnings forecast, but the company drew a pretty depressing picture of the consumer mind set in its fiscal first quarter ended May 3. In conference call yesterday, Craig Menear, Home Depot’s senior vice president of merchandising, identified what he called four trends of relative strength across the company’s business in the quarter: Seasonal categories. Consumers...

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Lowe’s has suffered a long slide as it, like the economy a little later, tripped over the housing sector implosion, but its recent results provide some evidence that the bottom is approaching and about what the recovery might be like. In the first quarter, Lowe’s earnings fell by 22 percent to $476 million, or 32 cents a share, year over year, but they beat the analyst average of 26 cents...

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