Retail Industry Archive

Dillard’s doesn’t say a lot and, despite some surprisingly good results posted Friday, its reward was a New York Post story about how struggles in the family controlling the retailer threaten to tear it down. Truth is, if publicly trade companies won’t talk, others will talk about them. The company provided no webcast or conference call detailing its earnings announcement Friday, but the...

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In a bright spot for the retailer, consumer acceptance of own brands helped J.C. Penney beat Thomson Reuters analyst average estimates for the first quarter, but in contrast to competitor Kohl’s, Penney has been bolstering the private label part of its portfolio, at least thus far. Private label helped women’s apparel emerge as top performing department in the first quarter at J.C. Penney,...

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Retailers have another reason to thank moms, as Mother’s Day provided the first year-over-year sales boost for their industry in any week since December According to the International Council of Shopping Centers, Mother’s Day, combined with some warmer weather, lifted sales for the week ended May 9 by 0.3 percent compared to the week before and 0.5 percent versus the same week in 2008....

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Macy’s may try its hand at the outlet business, CEO Terry Lundgren said in a news conference after Friday’s corporate annual meeting, The Cincinnati Enquirer reported, which could give it access to a whole new crop of consumers at a relatively low cost and help it manage inventory more effectively. Besides, its competition is enjoying the benefits outlets provide. Macy’s may have an...

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Apparently online retailers aren’t satisfying shoppers lately. A recent study put out by Ann Arbor, Mich.-based research firm ForeSee Results reported that consumer satisfaction with e-retail fell three percent from last year. And to illustrate how bad things have gotten in the industry, the firm throws out a striking statistic: On a 100-point scale, retailers’ aggregate score came...

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Last year, food inflation helped wipe out profits for all but the smallest supermarket operators, however this year the economy could make things worse for the entire grocery store industry. In fact, for the first time in the six years the Food Marketing Institute has tracked grocery store operator concerns as part of its State of the Food Industry review, two issues rated eight or higher on...

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ASDA, the Wal-Mart division operating in the United Kingdom, is getting set to develop a showcase store to drive Internet sales, an experiment to watch because the company likes to expand British successes to Canada and the United States. Such a showcase could build upon the idea of adding Internet kiosks to stores, one retailers have been employing to encourage purchasing from their expanded...

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Kohl’s credits a significant proportion of gross margin improvement enjoyed in the most recently completed quarter to private labels and exclusive brands, but they need to be considered separately to tease out what’s working for the retailer. The two are a bit different, of course. Private labels are developed by a retailer and are usually closely associated with its image and value...

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Retailers need to redouble their efforts to reach ethnic consumers because, for many, they will replace Baby Boomers as the critical growth demographic in the marketplace, Nielsen Co. research demonstrates. Critical to that conclusion is data indicating that, by 2036, households with children will outnumber those 65 and older without children by just five million compared to a 17 million...

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Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke is looking beyond the recession, placing emphasis in the company’s first quarter conference call on its ability to retain high-income customers won during the recession. Not that he’s predicting a rapid economic rebound. Rather, he noted that business improvements Wal-Mart has made and continues to make in the recession should serve to keep new customers coming into...

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