Corporate Governance

To work in retail is to accept the inevitability of déjà vu. But what returns is often never quite the same, as can be seen in the current struggle by many shopping malls to generate enough traffic to remain viable. Let me take you back to the days of my initiation to retail in New Orleans (site of next week’s National Retail Tenants Association conference), when malls began rising in former fields and woodlands and store owners in all regions struggled to manage the change.  

Walmart and Target are among the companies pressuring political leaders to find a solution for the roughly 800,000 immigrants known as “Dreamers.”  

American Eagle Outfitters is entering an emerging global retail market.   The teen retailer is preparing for its debut in India. American Eagle’s expansion will be supported through a multi-year license agreement with the Aditya Birla Group. The Indian conglomerate has an extensive retail portfolio, as well as strong digital and omnichannel capabilities.    The first stores are expected to open in Mumbai and Delhi in Spring 2018.  

An uptick in consumer spending could drive sales as high as $1.05 trillion this holiday season.   Retail holiday sales should rise a healthy 4% to 4.5% over last year's shopping season — a factor that could drive sales between $1.04 trillion and $1.05 trillion between November 2017 and January 2018, according to the annual retail holiday sales forecast from the firm’s retail and distribution practices. (Holiday sales are seasonally adjusted, and exclude motor vehicles and gasoline.)  

FedEx will have new shipping rates starting January 1, 2018.   All subsidiaries, FedEx Express, FedEx Ground and FedEx Freight, will increase their shipping fees by an average of 4.9%. The company is also imparting additional surcharges across other services.   For example, FedEx Express shipping rates will spike by an average of 4.9% for U.S. domestic, U.S. export and U.S. import services. FedEx One Rate pricing will increase by an average of 3.5%.  

UPS is ramping up its holiday workforce.   The company plans to hire approximately 95,000 seasonal employees to support an anticipated increase in package shipments during the 2017 holiday shopping season. UPS expects increased delivery volume to span between early November and January 2018.    This marks the fourth straight year that UPS is hiring this number of employees for the holiday season, according to Reuters.   

A combination of restructuring costs, Hurricane Harvey and a new accounting standard took its toll of Bed Bath & Beyond’s second quarter results.   For the quarter ended Aug. 26, the home goods retailer reported net sales of about $2.9 billion, a decrease of about 1.7% from the same time last year. Comparable sales also decreased by approximately 2.6%, surpassing analysts’ expectations of a 0.7% decrease.  

As it expands online and opens stores offline, Untuckit is looking forward to its biggest holiday shopping season to date.