Apparel

Whether customers at its stores are looking for convenient digital payment or easy access to product and price information, vertical specialty retailer Fossil Group Inc. is uncovering new mobile-enabled store services.

Richardson, Texas-based Fossil has selected in-store technology from Aptos Inc. (formerly Epicor Retail Solutions) including the vendor’s Mobile Store POS application. The company will initially deploy the solution at about 500 of its more than 600 corporate stores.

When it comes to marketing spending, Deckers Brands is doing more with less.

The Goleta, California-based vertical apparel retailer is performing advanced predictive analytics on the performance of different marketing activities for its North American direct-to-consumer Ugg specialty footwear business. This includes an e-commerce site, as well as 45 stores.

Two e-commerce vets are looking to tackle one of the retail industry’s most vexing problems: returns of online purchases.

David Sobie, former senior VP of marketing & business development at flash site HauteLook, and Mark Geller, former head of mobile at the company (which Nordstrom acquired in 2011), are launching Happy Returns, which seeks to eliminate the “pain” of returns by mail by establishing a network of “Return Bars” in malls and stores where shoppers can return merchandise purchased online and get an immediate refund.

For about three hours the morning of April 4 it looked like Christopher & Banks had found itself a new board member, but then the company discovered a conflict that prevented the high level executive from accepting the nomination.

Apparel retailer Express has been building its brand and upping its cool factor among millennials by signing up famous athletes and models to serve as “brand ambassadors.”

It’s just one of several tactics that the chain is using to drive its performance under the leadership of CEO David Kornberg, who took the reins in January 2015.

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March was a solid month for U.S. job makers, with retailers leading the way.

The retail industry — excluding autos, gasoline and food services — added a solid 40,000 jobs in March, the National Retail Federation reported on Friday. The job market overall saw growth of 215,000 jobs in the month of March.

Retail has added an average of 52,000 jobs per month over the last three months.

J.C. Penney is teaming up with WWE to launch a new line of performance apparel for men and women.

Tapout, a global fitness and training brand recently re-launched by WWE and Authentic Brands Group, is now available in nearly 300 J.C. Penney stores and at jcp.com, with plans to launch a women’s collection this summer.