Consumer Affairs & Relations

Sam’s Club has entered into an agreement with Visa to begin accepting Visa credit cards starting Feb. 1.

“Everything we do is in an effort to better serve our members and extend the value of membership. By accepting Visa credit cards, we are giving our members more ways to shop that are convenient for them,” says Tracey Brown, chief member officer at Sam’s Club.

The good works of the NRF Foundation will continue another year under the leadership of HSNi CEO Mindy Grossman and be complemented by the insights of four newly elected board members.

Ahead of the National Retail Federation’s annual convention in New York, the trade group’s non-profit arm said HSNi CEO Mindy Grossman would serve for another year as board chair and named four other retail industry executives to two-year board terms.

Publix Super Markets continues to make news on the executive front.

When providing the BDO retail IPO outlook for 2015 at the beginning of this year, we asked: Will consumer businesses face a potential Alibaba hangover in 2015?
 

The National Retail Federation confirmed what many retailers already knew and made a downward revision to a holiday forecast that initially called for 3.7% growth.
 
Citing what it called “unforeseen events,” the National Retail Federation (NRF) said sales during November and December increased 3% to $626 billion, down from an earlier forecast which envisioned growth of 3.7%.   
 

Has founder and ousted CEO Dov Charney made his last stand at American Apparel?

The board of American Apparel Inc. rejected a $300-million takeover bid from Hagan Capital Group and Silver Creek Capital Partners — the investors aligned with Charney — according to the Los Angeles Times.

Toys“R”Us says its annual nationwide fundraising campaign to benefit the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation raised more than $5.8 million and collected over 200,000 toys.

During the 2015 campaign, customers helped bring holiday joy to some of the 15.5 million kids in need across the U.S. by donating new, unwrapped toys at Toys“R”Us and Babies“R”Us stores nationwide and through monetary contributions made in stores and online at Toysrus.com/ToysforTots.

On Tuesday, President Obama delivered his seventh and final State of the Union address to the Congress. Unlike the previous six, this was not a long list of policy agenda items he would like to see the Congress address in the coming year. It was, instead, a broader conversation regarding the state of American democracy.

The downsizing continues at Sears Holding Corp.

The troubled retailer is closing what it described as a “very small percentage” of its overall number of Kmart and Sears stores across the country.

"Every year we evaluate our store portfolio and make changes based on leases or stores with poor performance," company spokesman Howard Riefs said in a Reuters report.

The exact number of stores to be shuttered has not been disclosed. But Reifs also said Kmart would account for the majority of the closures.

Toys “R” Us says its annual nationwide fundraising campaign to benefit the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation raised more than $5.8 million and collected over 200,000 toys.

During the 2015 campaign, customers helped bring holiday joy to some of the 15.5 million kids in need across the U.S. by donating new, unwrapped toys at Toys “R” Us and Babies “R” Us stores nationwide and through monetary contributions made in stores and online at Toysrus.com/ToysforTots.