Consumer Affairs & Relations

Irving, Texas – Michaels Stores has learned of possible fraudulent activity on some U.S. payment cards that had been used at Michaels, suggesting that the company may have experienced a data security attack.

In a statement posted to its website on Jan. 25, Michaels said it is working closely with federal law enforcement and is conducting an investigation with the help of third-party data security experts to establish the facts.

Columbia, Md. – A lone 19-year-old gunman killed two employees of a Zumiez store at The Mall of Columbia in Columbia, Md., on the morning of Jan. 26. Media reports indicate that local authorities began receiving 911 calls about the incident at the suburban Baltimore mall at 11:15 a.m. ET.

Shoppers still love Apple products, as evidenced by record unit sales for the iPhone and iPad.
Apple sales increased 5.7% to $57.6 billion from $54.5 billion during the company’s first quarter ended December 28 thanks to record sales of its flagship products.

The company sold a record 51 million iPhones compared to 47.8 million last year and iPad sales increased to 26 million units from 22.9 million last year. The biggest percentage gain came from the Mac business where units sold increased to 4.8 million from 4.1 million.

Irvine, Calif. -- Merchandise returns in 2013 cost U.S. retailers more than $267 billion in lost sales. That’s one of the findings contained in The Retail Equation’s 2013 Consumer Returns in the Retail Industry study, which analyzes results from the National Retail Federation’s annual survey on merchandise returns and the 2012 Canadian Retail Security Survey from The Retail Council of Canada National Retail Federation.

Fort Worth, Texas – RadioShack is introducing a new brand positioning, including the motto, "It Can Be Done, When We Do It Together." The company said the new positioning highlights the brand's ability to collaborate with consumers to help them discover what is possible through technology.

Washington, D.C. – The FBI has reportedly issued a confidential report to U.S. retailers warning that more cyber attacks like the ones recently suffered by Target and Neiman Marcus will occur. According to Reuters, the three-page report was distributed Jan. 17 and informs retailers that the FBI has discovered in the past year there have been at least 20 attacks using the same type of malware used against Target.

The Michigan Retailers Association (MRA) said that Michigan's retail industry had a poor holiday shopping season thanks to damaging winter storms and “outdated government policies that favor out-of-state online companies.”

Retailers posted only a 0.1% average increase over last holiday season, according to the Michigan Retail Index, a joint project of MRA and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

Cary, N.C. – The Pantry has confirmed that JCP Investment Management, LLC, and Lone Star Value Management, LLC (“the dissident group”) submitted a notice of intent to nominate director candidates to stand for election to The Pantry’s board of directors at the company's 2014 annual meeting of stockholders.