Consumer Affairs & Relations

Photo: Paula Schneider    The saga continues at American Apparel.   Paula Schneider plans to step down as CEO of the apparel retailer on Oct. 3, according to yahoo.com, which cited a report by Women’s Wear Daily. Schneider will be replaced by the company’s general counsel and chief administrative officer, Chelsea Grayson.  

After keeping mum about a potential far-reaching data breach, Yahoo has finally come clean.   The search engine company confirmed today that account information for approximately 500 million users was stolen from the company’s network in late 2014.  

The CEO of Jordan’s Furniture wants folks to watch the upcoming presidential debate, which is scheduled for Sept. 26 from 9 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. EST.  

Target Corp. on Wednesday announced its board has authorized a $5 billion share buyback plan.   The retailer will begin repurchasing shares under the new plan upon completion of its current $10 billion program, which is expected before the end of fiscal 2016 in January. Under that program, the company has purchased $8.8 billion worth of shares.   Target also declared a dividend of 60 cents per common share for the fourth quarter, unchanged from the third quarter.  

Chip-based payment terminals seem to be everywhere. But that does not mean they are being used the way they intended.    However, almost a year after the imposed Europay, MasterCard, Visa (EMV) mandate deadline, barely one-third of retailers actually accept chip-based payments, according to an infographic from The Strawhecker Group (TSG).  

Photo: Vidya Jwala   Overstock.com has nabbed a Walmart VP.   The online retailer named Vidya Jwala as senior VP of demand fulfillment, responsible for overseeing the e-commerce leader’s sourcing, merchandising, supply chain and customer-care businesses.   Jwala joins Overstock from Walmart, where, as VP of merchandising and operations, he focused on merchandising planning, category management, pricing and costing.  

Casto has been successful building shopping centers in Ohio for 70 years because it’s not afraid to shift with the times, Don M. Casto III said in yesterday’s edition of the Columbus Dispatch.   The company has increasingly joined forces with other developers on mixed-use projects and turned back to its roots of building residences and retail buildings in downtown Columbus, the paper reported.   

How do industry observers rate retail social customer care? #EpicFail.   The term social customer care refers to the quick and personalized customer service brands are expected to provide through social media once a customer engages with them to resolve an issue. To date, 92.5% of brands are failing to meet customers' social customer care expectations, according to the “Social Customer Care Report,” from Rational Interaction.  

The Talbots announced that Michael Weiss, longtime CEO of Express, has joined the Talbots board of directors, effective Sept. 1, 2012.     Weiss held various leadership roles at Express, most recently serving from 2007 to 2015 as chairman, president and CEO. He joined Limited Brands in 1981 as the merchandise manager for an eight-store experimental division that became Express.     

In case you missed it, a national Higher Ground Moral Day of Action took place Monday at 30 state capitols across the country and in Washington, D.C. An organization of national and local progressive faith leaders called Moral Revival planned the events to deliver their "Higher Ground Moral Declaration." They called on politicians at all levels “to move away from extremist politics and policies that benefit the few and move toward policies and laws that are just and fair and guarantee a better life for the majority of the people.”