Apparel

Bentonville, Ark. – Wal-Mart Stores has reportedly tested more than 200 factories with which it does business in Bangladesh and found safety issues at 32 of them. According to Reuters, Wal-Mart sent out an email saying that 30 of those 32 factories have corrected the issues since their discovery.

San Francisco – Free digital personal shopping assistant Shop It To Me has released an iPhone app. This makes Shop It To Me, previously available via Internet and e-mail, available to smartphone users.

Shop It To Me searches more than 100 online department stores and specialty retailers to uncover sales on items that exactly match each shopper's preferences. Relevant sale items are compiled into a single email and delivered to the shopper, who can click through to a retailer to make the purchase.

Bon-Ton is looking to upgrade its supply chain solution and is turning to technology provider ecVision to help the company improve the existing platform it uses.

Seven years ago, Bon-Ton implemented ecVision's solutions for vendor management, PO integration and production and shipment tracking for its international orders. The company is ready for an upgrade, however, so it can efficiently deal with the more than 100,000 SKUs which are sourced and delivered to stores around the country.

North Plainfield, N.J. — Levin Management’s annual pre-holiday retail sentiment survey has found that retailers expect consumers to begin their holiday shopping sooner this year. Specifically, Levin said that 43.3% of responding retailers believe that holiday sales will peak prior to and during the Thanksgiving/Black Friday weekend sales period.

Only 13.5% believe that sales will peak later — during the weekend before Christmas, a significant drop from last year’s 29.2%.

New York -- Half of Americans (50%) say they will be purchasing toys as gifts this holiday season. This is slightly down from the 52% of U.S. adults who said they were purchasing toys last year, according to results of a new Harris Poll.

San Francisco -- Gap's new global marketing campaign, "Make Love,” includes print, outdoor, direct mail, social and cinema, as well as new digital content daily.

Destination Maternity Corp. is showing off a new superstore prototype, in Virginia Beach,Va. The 5,000-sq.-ft. store has a "discovery" or open floor plan that offers customers different paths to explore the space. Larger graphics, new fixtures and tables and enhanced fitting rooms  create a modern, inviting environment.  Merchandise is displayed in lifestyle zones, with elevated presentations of categories. There are also new mannequins, and more of them.

Tiffany’s chief financial officer, Patrick F. McGuiness, has resigned his position effective Nov. 27. The company’s EVP and chief operating officer, James Fernandez, will assume the position of CFO on an interim basis.

Fernandez has been with Tiffany’s since 1983. The board of Tiffany’s has authorized a search for a new CFO.