Transform SR Brands LLC

New York -- Kmart will shutter two locations in the Philadelphia area this spring, Philadelphia Business Journal said. The locations, at The Gallery and at 900 Orthodox St., will close in late April.

Hoffman Estates, Ill. – Sears plans to close a store in the Loop section of downtown Chicago in April 2014. Sears spokesperson Howard Riefs announced the closing in an email which said the store’s 160 employees, most of whom are part-time, will be eligible to apply for jobs at other Sears stores in the area and also to receive severance.

Perhaps no single brand had a holiday season quite as rocky as Sears. When the retailer announced a string of bad news on Jan. 9, shares of Sears Holding Corp. (which includes both Sears and Kmart) went through the floor. Holiday sales at Sears stores were down 9.2% in the nine weeks prior to Jan. 6, a brutal figure when you consider that overall retail sales were up slightly over the holidays (which I’ll discuss more in my next column).

Hoffman Estates, Ill. – Sears Holdings has signed a sublease with Dick's Sporting Goods to occupy a portion of its second floor at the King of Prussia Mall in King of Prussia, Pa. The two-story anchor building will be renovated with Sears maintaining exterior entrances on both levels and the mall entrance on level one.  

Sears and Kmart are the first companies to engage with the Pikato platform and have already seen mobile engagement rates soar 1,100%, according to Pikato.

Pikato’s retail mobile marketing solution personalizes the customer shopping experience to increase consumer engagement and deliver measurable results.

New York -- Sears Canada Inc. has entered into an arrangement with IBM to have the supplier take over the work currently performed at three internal Sears customer contact centers. The outsourcing move will take place over the next nine months and affect 1,345 employees.

RG Barry Brands has named digital marketing veteran Heather Richard as its director of e-commerce.

Richard will be responsible for strategy and management of R.G. Barry's online initiatives, including multi-brand direct Web store operations, online marketing and overall ecommerce channel growth.

Declining sales at Sears during the holiday period prompted the company to announce that it anticipates a fourth-quarter loss.

The company expects a net loss of between $250 million and $360 million for the quarter, compared to a net loss of $460 million a year earlier. Same-store sales dropped 5.7% in the quarter through Jan. 6 at Kmart, and 9.2% at U.S. Sears stores , resulting in a for a companywide decline of 7.4%.