Strategy

Walmart gave investors an early Christmas gift earlier this week in the form of a long-awaited third-quarter same-stores sales increase, then ruined the holiday spirit by coming up a penny short of analysts’ earnings estimates.

New York City -- Mattress Firm Holding Corp. raised about $105.6 million after pricing its initial public offering at the top of its expected range.

The retailer priced the IPO of 5.6 million shares at $19 each. It had expected shares to sell initially for $17 to $19 each.

Mattress Firm said it will use most of the offering's net proceeds — about $95 million after expenses — to repay $84.4 million in debt and pay fees to its biggest shareholder, Boston private equity firm J.W. Childs.

From dazzling LCD/LED video displays to rotating mannequins to staircases with color-changing LED lights, Uniqlo’s Manhattan flagship is massive in scope and bold in design.

The three-level, 89,000-sq.-ft. store is the largest Uniqlo outlet in the world. It’s a big store for a company with big ambitions: Uniqlo parent Fast Retailing Co., the world’s fourth-largest apparel retailer, is targeting $50 billion in global sales by 2020.

As cost savings continue to be the name of the game in retail, supply chain has come under even closer scrutiny as a major expense to be controlled. Chain Store Age talked with George Prest, COO of the Material Handling Industry of America (MHIA), about what lies ahead for the supply chain and global trade, as well as the association’s inaugural trade show MODEX, to be held in early 2012. 

What one trend do think will most shape the supply chain in 2012?

An early November announcement that an area of downtown Atlanta would become the site of a multi-modal transit hub was welcome news to anyone who has ever sat in the southern city’s many traffic snarls.

New York City -- New York & Co. reported Thursday that its loss widened in the third quarter to $6 million, from $4 million last year.

Sales dropped to $216.7 million, compared with $238.2 million a year earlier. Same-store sales decreased 5.2%.

PLEASANTON, Calif. — Safeway Inc. announced that its stores raised $1 million for the Wounded Warrior Project, an organization that exists to honor and empower military men and women who incurred service-related injuries on or after Sept. 11, 2001.

The money was raised during Veteran's Day weekend by all Safeway, Vons, Pavilions, Dominick's, Randalls, Genuardi's, Tom Thumb and Carrs stores in the United States

Seattle -- Nordstrom said Friday it will shutter its underperforming University Mall store in Orem, Utah. The 122,000-sq.-ft. store is slated to close on Feb. 24.

The store, which opened March 29, 2002, didn’t perform to company standards, according to Nordstrom.