Apparel

A store designed by women and for women. That’s Sport Chek Women, which made its debut on Thursday at CF Chinook Centre, in Calgary.  

A good number of retailers were impacted when Amazon Web Services — the company’s most profitable division — experienced a four-hour outage on Tuesday.      The outage caused major headaches for millions of AWS customers, according to web monitoring and optimization firm Apica, which monitored the top 100 Internet retailer sites during the outage.       

American Eagle Outfitters topped earnings expectations amid a strong performance by its Aerie division, but issued a cautious note for fiscal 2017.   For the quarter ended Jan 28, the retailer reported better-than-expected earnings of $54.6 million, or 30 cents per share, down from $81.7 million, or 42 cents per share, a year earlier. Excluding one-time items, the chain has earnings of 39 cents per share, beating consensus analysts estimates by a penny.  

The competitive apparel market and a touch retail climate overall has claimed another victim.    BCBG Max Azria Group LLC on Wednesday announced that it taken “the next step in the restructuring of its brands and operations” by filing for Chapter 11 of bankruptcy protection. Earlier this month, the company revealed plans to close 120 stores as part of its restructuring efforts.   

The final clearance sale is already underway at Macy’s store in downtown Minneapolis.     Macy’s Inc. has officially completed the sale of its Minneapolis property to 601W Companies for $59 million in cash. The store is expected to close this spring.       The department store retailer will record a gain for the property of approximately $47 million in first quarter 2017. The gain was originally anticipated and included in 2017 earnings guidance previously provided by the company.

The off-price segment continues to be one of the brightest spots in brick-and-mortar retail.    Ross Stores on Tuesday reported earnings per share for the fourth quarter ended January 28, 2017 of $.77, up 17% from the prior year, on net earnings that rose 14% to a better-than-expected $301 million. But the retailer offered a cautious outlook amid economic and industry challenges.    Ross’ sales quarter grew 8% to $3.5 billion. Same-store sales increased 4%.   

I’ve seen the future of retail. And it’s not all online, not by a long shot.

First, let’s deal with the elephant in the room. Yes, traditional brick-and-mortar retailers are confronted with challenges on multiple fronts. Adapting stores to accommodate today’s digitally savvy and demanding customers is no easy feat.

In the course of interviewing experts for this month’s open-air report, I heard two admiring references to Woodbury Common. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard the Simon Premium Outlet center used as an exemplar of traits modern retail should strive for — things like great customer experience, well-curated stores, and good food. I thought it time that I take a drive up to Orange County, N.Y., and see what all the fuss was about.