Apparel

Separating itself from Sears Holdings a year ago has not helped Land’s End financial footing judging from the company’s fourth quarter profit and same store sales decline.

Land’s End sales declined 4.9% to $504.6 million and net income declined 28% to $33.1 million in the fourth quarter ended Jan. 30. Merchandise sales and services were negatively impacted by a $3.4 million product recall in the quarter that negatively impacted net income by $2.6 million.

Facebook is aiming to revolutionize the way customers communicate with retailers by re-inventing the customer service platform.

The tech giant is inviting retailers and other companies to develop software that allows customers to communicate instantly with them through Facebook Messenger. Facebook and its partner Zendesk, a customer service platform firm, are teaming up to allow businesses to provide scalable and responsive customer service to the more than 600 million people worldwide who use Messenger.

Teen and tween specialty retailer Five Below is accelerating store growth this year even though its relatively young store base mustered a modest 3.2% fourth quarter same store sales increase.

Five Below opened 62 new stores last year compared to 60 units the prior year to end the year with 366 locations in 21 states. The additional selling space and a 3.2% comp increase caused sales to increase 24.4% to $264 million from $212 million. Profits increased to $33.3 million compared to $24.8 million.

Minneapolis – Christopher & Banks Corp. on Tuesday swung to a profit of $32.2 million for the fourth quarter, after reporting a loss in the same period a year earlier.

Net sales totaled $98.0 million, as compared to $104.9 million for the year-ago period. During the quarter, the company operated an average of 7.0% fewer stores than during the comparable period last year, reflecting its store conversion program.

The retailer posted revenue of $98 million in the period.

New York -- Global Visual Group (GVG) has appointed 30-year retailing veteran Tony Mancini as CEO. Mancini has held significant senior executive leadership positions, including  Las Vegas Sands Corp., MGM Mirage Design Group and Walt Disney Parks & Resorts/Walt Disney Imagineering, leading its global capital development portfolios worldwide.
   

New York -- Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) on Tuesday posted a 36% jump in its first quarter profit, easily beating forecasts, and confirmed earlier reports that it plans to open 400 stores in its current fiscal year, with most of the locations in China and the United States. In New York, it will open a 61,000-sq.-ft. flagship — one of the largest H&Ms to date — in Manhattan’s Herald Square area.
   

Dublin, Calif. – The Ross Stores Inc. board of directors has approved a two-for-one stock split on June 11, 2015. The split will be paid in the form of a 100% stock dividend to stockholders of record as of April 22, 2015.

New York – Online specialty fashion retailer Revolve focuses heavily on customer experience to stay competitive in a tough market. Revolve has selected Dynamic Action, the Big Data and decision intelligence Application from OrderDynamics, to connect the “critical dots” such as: item level exposure, loyal customers’ return rates, competitive pricing and optimal inventory levels.  

Swedish retailer H&M, which has already made huge waves in the United States, is now eyeing even more global omnichannel expansion.

The company is planning to open 400 new physical stores, a new flagship in New York City’s Herald Square, and at least nine new online stores.

The retailer also reported results for the first quarter ended Feb. 28. H&M reported that net profit climbed 36% to 3.61 billion kronor ($423.2 million), versus a year-ago profit of 2.65 billion kronor ($311.9 million). Analysts were expecting a profit of 3.37 billion kronor.

Off-price retailer Ross Stores feels so good about its sales performance and outlook that it has approved a 2-for-1 stock split scheduled for June.

The company said the split will be paid in the form of a 100% stock dividend to stockholders of record as of April 22. 

Ross Stores had fiscal 2014 revenue of $11 billion.