Retail

Philadelphia -- Destination Maternity its total sales for the second quarter fell 2.1% to $134.9 million from $137.8 million. The company attributed the drop to the closure of all of its remaining leased departments within Babies “R” Us stores in October, along with the closures of underperforming stores.

Despite the sales drop, Destination Maternity said it now expects its second-quarter profit to fall in the top half of its previously projected range of 38 cents to 44 cents per share, crediting tight management of its expenses.

New York -- Apple has tapped Foster + Partners to refresh its store design, according to a report by Marketing.

The London-based architectural company has a history with Apple. It was hired by the late Steve Jobs to help design and create Apple’s new UFO-styled corporate headquarters, which is still under construction.
 

By Ellis Verdi, president of the NYC advertising agency DeVito/Verdi

Here are the five lessons I learned from the J.C. Penney debacle — unfortunately we knew all of this before Ron took his ideas to market.

New York -- New York State Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey Oing on Thursday refused to dismiss Macy's Inc's claim that Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia violated its contract when it designed certain merchandise for J.C. Penney Co., regardless of whether the items carry the Martha Stewart brand.

New York -- Three executives who had previously worked with Ron Johnson at Apple and then joined him at J.C. Penney have left the embattled department store chain in the wake of Johnson’s ouster, the New York Post reported.

According to the report, Mike Kramer, COO, Daniel Walker, chief talent officer, and Mike Fishe, chief creative officer, left Penney on Wednesday. The newspaper said Kramer resigned, but that it was not clear whether Walker and Fisher left voluntarily.

Camp Hill, Pa. — Rite Aid  reported a $123.1 million profit for the fourth quarter and a $118.1 million profit for the fiscal year, compared with respective losses of $161.3 million and $368.6 million during the same period last year. It was the drugstore chain's second-straight quarterly profit and first annual gain in six years, amid  increases in prescription count  and front-end end sales.

London -- Brooks Brothers will adopt eCommera’s decision intelligence tool, DynamicAction. Designed to turn big retail data into prioritized actions, the solution integrates siloed data into a commerce-specific cloud solution which will allow the retailer to identify optimization opportunities to improve its overall online commerce performance.
 

New York -- L.Brands, parent of Victoria's Secret, reported better-than-expected 3% sales in same-store sales for March. Zumiez Inc. and Buckle Inc. also both reported better-than-expected numbers.

But other retailers were hampered by a colder-than-normal March, which caused many shoppers to put off buying warmer-weather clothing, and an early Easter. At The TJX Companies, same-store sales fell 2% in March, a bigger drop than was expected.