Seasonal

Plano, Texas – It will not be a happy New Year for employees of some 40 J.C. Penney stores. The company on Thursday said that it plans to close approximately 40 stores, which represent less than 4% of its total store base, on or about April 4, 2015. The closures will affect about 2,250 employees.

New York -- Teen retailers had a “less dreadful” holiday selling season than was anticipated. That’s how analysts are tempering the news that banners such as American Eagle Outfitters, Aeropostale and Urban Outfitters posted stronger-than-expected holiday results, released by most on Thursday.

In fact, say industry watchers, the strong sales figures look pretty shiny because they are exaggerated by pre-season low expectations, which were dragged down by fears of aggressive discounting and waning mall traffic.

Pacific Sunwear said it will lose less money in the fourth quarter than originally expected after its California lifestyle product assortment resonated with holiday shoppers and drove a 9% same store sales increase.

Barnes and Noble Inc. saw a sharp decline in holiday sales in its Nook e-reader division, even as its retail segment showed small improvement.

The Nook segment (including digital content, devices and accessories), had sales of $56 million for the nine-week holiday period, decreasing 55% as compared to a year ago. Device and accessories sales were $28.5 million, a decrease of 68%. Digital content sales were $27.4 million, a decline of 25%.

Barnes & Noble is expected to spin off the Nook segment into a separate business in March.

The 2014 holiday season was a perky one at L Brands, as sales increased beyond expectations in December.

The parent company of Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works reported that same store sales across the company increased by 4% for the month. Wall Street analysts had been predicting a 3.6% increase.

Dollar Tree and Dollar General shareholders may be wondering why the boards of their respective companies are so intent on acquiring Family Dollar after seeing the takeover target’s first quarter results.

San Francisco – In-store sales mostly showed small improvements in December 2014 compared to the prior year. According to the latest U.S. Retail Benchmarks report from in-store analytics provider Euclid, there was 0.6% year-over-year growth in general merchandise, apparel, furniture and other retail sales and a 1.2% increase in clothing and apparel sales, but a 1.5% decline in general merchandise sales.

Here are some of Euclid’s other top findings in its December report around shopper behavior metrics:

Hamilton, Bermuda – Signet Jewelers Ltd. had a sparkly holiday season. The retailer’s eight-week fiscal 2015 holiday season sales grew 3.6%.

Signet's omnichannel strategy was successful during the holiday season. E-commerce sales increased 90.9%, and, excluding the Zale division, increased 20%. As a percent of Signet's holiday season's total sales, e-commerce increased 1.6%. Each division delivered higher e-commerce growth and penetration relative to total sales.