Apparel

Despite dire statements made on a recent SEC filing, Sears and Kmart stores will remain as fixtures on the retail landscape for some time to come, according to retail real estate experts contacted by Chain Store Age.   “The news was not news,” said REIT analyst Alexander Goldfarb of Sandler O’Neill + Partners about a Sears filing that questioned its own future as a “going concern.”  

Four years of losses are catching up with Bebe Stores Inc.    The fashion retailer is hoping to turn its brand around by closing its stores and putting all its focus on e-commerce, according to Bloomberg. Bebe currently operates about 170 stores.   

Sears Holdings Corp.’s acknowledgement in a filing on Tuesday that the retailer had “serious doubt” about its future came as no big surprise to the retail industry, including Joseph Coradino, chairman and CEO of PREIT, a publicly traded real estate investment trust that owns and manages 23 million square feet of retail and lifestyle space.   

Sears Canada Inc. is going all out with its plans for an in-store off-price shop.   The chain will unveil the dedicated shop, called The Cut, this spring, and plans to roll it out to all its 94 stores. The off-price concept launched its own e-commerce website last week.      The Cut will take up from 30,000 sq. ft. to 40,000 sq. ft. inside the stores and will be evenly split between apparel and home offerings, according to Women’s Wear Daily.       

Chain Store Age honored five dynamic and growing retail and restaurant brands at its annual Breakout Retailer Awards presentation, which was held at CSA’s SPECS 2017 Conference, in Kissimmee, Florida.    The Breakout Retailer honorees for 2017 were Altar’d State, Bentley’s Pet Stuff, MOD Pizza, Sugarfina and Warby Parker. The awards were sponsored by Paint Folks, a division of Academy Service Group.    

The nation’s largest family-owned and operated retail jewelry chain is opening its first-ever outlet stores.   Rogers & Hollands Jewelers will launch a discount store prototype, Rogers & Hollands Outlet, this April. Two Rogers & Hollands stores in the Chicago area, one at North Riverside Park Mall and one at Golf Mill Shopping Center, will be rebranded, remodeled and reopened under the new banner.   

Pacific Place, a 20-year-old luxury retail center in downtown Seattle, will be undergoing an extensive re-do beginning the fourth quarter of this year.   The 330,000-sq.-ft. home to Nordstrom’s flagship store, Barneys New York, and Tiffany & Co. will get a new South Lake-facing grand entrance to make way for added space that will accommodate upgraded restaurant tenants.  

The use of artificial intelligence has given Charlotte Russe an important competitive edge.    With its online and mobile shopping communities growing larger and their expectations for flawless services increasing,   the apparel retailer turned to IBM to prepare for the busy and critical 2016, five-day holiday shopping season kick-off. To get a jump start, Charlotte Russe launched IBM’s Watson Customer Engagement solutions in seven months. And the technology immediately gave the retailer a wake-up call.