Corporate Governance

Menomonee Falls, Wis. — Kohl’s Department Stores had a tough third quarter that included a 20% drop in profits, but the retailer reportedly sees its loyalty program and mobile wallet as important competitive assets. According to the Wall Street Journal, a 300-store pilot program of the new Kohl’s loyalty program garnered 10 million enrollees, and another 10 million shoppers have joined since the program went nationwide in October.  

Fresh & Easy, the former Tesco-owned grocery format, is testing a dramatically new look at seven-plus stores in the Las Vegas market.

The stores have been remodeled with a more modern feel and layout and a greater emphasis on ready meal solutions, with such features as a “Fresh to Go” hot food bar, a pizza oven, a coffee bar and made-to-order sandwiches. There's also a revamped product selection with lower fixtures and a more abundant selection of fresh food. 

Columbus, Ohio – Big Lots Inc. came up smaller than Wall Street expected with its fiscal performance in the third quarter of fiscal 2014. Net loss shrank to a higher-than-expected $3.44 million from $9.52 million in the same quarter the prior fiscal year.
  Net sales marginally grew to $1.11 billion from $1.1 billion, and same-store sales increased 1.4%. The company expects low-single-digit increases in same-store sales for the fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2014.
 

Newtown Square, Penn. – Omnichannel is increasing the reach retailers have to their customers, but also increasing customer expectations. According to a survey of marketing decision-makers in omnichannel consumer products organizations from SAP, 86% of respondents agree that omnichannel has meant that customer and consumer expectations of the organization have increased.  

Big Lots hypothetical core customer Jennifer isn’t feeling so cheerful this holiday season as the nation’s leading closeout retailer is eyeing a low single digit fourth quarter comp increase.

Buenos Aires, Argentina — Specialty entertainment applicance retailer Musimundo, which operates more than 200 stores in Argentina, deployed its e-commerce platform on the  IBM Cloud to meet increased customer demand on Cyber Monday.

As it prepared for Cyber Monday 2014, Musimundo's greatest challenge was to address the number of entries of people to its website per second, and it needed to manage load balance and security levels in accordance with regulatory requirements.

Teen retailer Delia’s Inc. plans to liquidate operations and file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection "in the very near term."

The company has struggled with weak sales for years and has not reported an annual profit since 2007.

Several teen apparel retailers have been losing market share to fast-fashion brands such as H&M, Forever 21 and Zara.

Boilignbrook, Ill. — Ulta Beauty reported fiscal results for the third quarter of fiscal 2014 that looked pretty darned good. Net income rose 30% to $59.1 million compared to $45.4 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2013, with lower expenses helping drive up profit.

The company said it will have opened 100 new stores in all of fiscal 2014 and remodeled another 12.