Apparel

Despite severe winter weather travails during the holiday shopping season, the National Retail Federation reported that December retail sales didn’t take the hit that many feared.

In fact, taking advantage of heavy promotions and last-minute deals, shoppers were able to move the December retail sales needle up 0.4% month-to-month, excluding automobiles, gas stations and restaurants, and up 4.6% year-over-year.



New York -- Eminence Capital, a 4.9% stakeholder in Jos. A. Bank and a 10% shareholder in Men’s Wearhouse, said it supports Men's Wearhouse's proposed acquisition of the company and demanded that Jos. A. Bank's board sit down and engage in "meaningful, good faith negotiations."

Efforts to merge the two retailers have dragged on for months, with each chain having their offers to acquire the other rejected.

Atlanta -- First Data Corp., in its SpendTrend analysis for December, reported that dollar volume grew 6.1%, which marked a significant spike compared to November’s growth of 4.4% as holiday shoppers were out in full force with no time to procrastinate due to the shortened holiday shopping season.

SpendTrend tracks same-store point-of-sale data by credit, signature debit, PIN debit, EBT, closed-loop prepaid cards and checks from nearly four million U.S. merchant locations serviced by First Data.

New York -- Big data discovery and data-sharing solution-provider 1010data said that Claire’s has chosen its cloud-based platform for big data discovery across its global businesses. 1010data allows Claire’s to integrate data from throughout its enterprise and provide a self-service analytical platform for users to derive data-driven insights and receive fast access to business results.

Redwood Shores, Calif. -- To extend its “commerce anywhere” strategy, Stage Stores has implemented Oracle Commerce. The initiative, completed in less than six months, provided the retailer with a new e-commerce engine, along with guided search and recommendation solutions, all before the 2012 holiday shopping season kicked off.

New York -- VeriFone Systems announced that The Jones Group Inc. has selected VeriFone solutions to enable mobile payment acceptance and enhance customer experience for its internationally recognized brands, including Jones New York and Nine West.

VeriFone will upgrade the brands’ payment environments with its PAYware Mobile e210 mobile point-of-sale (mPOS) solution and the MX 915, an NFC-enabled, multi-media payment terminal.
 

Tysons Corner, Va. -- MicroStrategy Inc. announced that Guess has unveiled a new mobile app for its customers powered by the MicroStrategy Alert Platform.

The NRF 2014 Conference & Exposition kicked things off Sunday, Jan. 12 with sessions examining both how social media will continue to evolve as a dominant means of customer interaction and how the brick-and-mortar store will remain a highly relevant part of the retail environment in the 21st century. Let’s look at a few highlights from each session.

Picturing Social Success

New York -- In a hugely attended address kicking off the National Retail Federation’s 2014 “Big Show” at Javits Center in New York City, shopping center developer Rick Caruso challenged attendees – most of them retailers from the technology side of their companies – to remember the “human” side of retail.

Lululemon planned to start 2014 with a new CEO and flat comparable store sales for the fourth quarter. Despite being on track to hit its numbers, however, a significant dip in traffic and sales in January has prompted the company to cut its fourth quarter forecast.