Winter Holidays

The holiday hiring wars have begun.

Target Corp. is the first national retailer to announce its holiday hiring plans with the news that it plans to hire 70,000 seasonal store associates. The amount is the same as last year.

In addition, the discounter plan to hire 7,500 employees to work in its distribution and fulfillment facilities during the holiday season, which is slightly up from last year.

On the heels of announcing plans to open smaller, “local” stores, lululemon athletica hopes to further extend the breadth of its brand by expanding its ship-from-store service — just in time for the upcoming holiday shopping season.    The program, which currently encompasses 11 stores, will grow to 65 locations, a move that will streamline fulfillment of online orders, Laurent Potdevin, lululemon’s CEO, said during the company’s fiscal second quarter 2016 earnings call last week.  

Kohl’s comprehensive omnichannel distribution network is about to get even bigger.   The department store chain is preparing to open a new distribution center in Plainfield, Ind., just in time to manage the 2017 holiday season.  

In the lead-up to this year’s holiday season, retailers across the country are already making important preparations in the hopes of increasing sales, improving customer service, and preventing data breaches. This last concern carries with it a heavy price tag; according to a survey from the Ponemon Institute, the average cost of holiday season cyber attacks is $8,000 per minute or nearly half-a-million dollars per hour.   

Hanjin Shipping Co., the world’s seventh-largest container shipper, is working to ease the potential cargo chaos caused by its bankruptcy filing last week.    The filing rose concerns among some of the nation’s biggest retailers that some merchandise may not arrive in time for the crucial holiday season, blooomberg.com reported.  

In a deal that comes right before the all-important holiday selling season, Toys “R” Us has entered into an exclusive partnership with one of the toy industry’s premier doll brands.     Mattel’s American Girl division announced a multi-year partnership with Toys “R” Us that will make the toy giant the first — and only — U.S.-based retailer to feature American Girl in-store shops.   

Don’t miss this Chain Store Age webinar on retailers’ most important selling season: the holidays.    Entitled “Holiday Uptime: Preparing your network for the holiday rush,” the presentation will offer tips for developing a network outage plan and offer advice on how to issue-proof a network. It will also reveal common network traps overlooked by retailers.   

On Thursday, Aug. 25, Sears Holdings Corp., on the heels of another dismal quarter, announced it had accepted a capital infusion in the way of a $300 million loan by CEO Eddie Lampert’s hedge fund.