Department Store

New York -- MasterCard Advisor’s latest MasterCard Spending Pulse survey found that there are some product categories that won’t see the biggest spending uptick on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

The monthly SpendingPulse report anticipates that the biggest shopping day of the season for jewelry and luxury retailers will be Dec. 21 – the last Saturday before Christmas, which is becoming commonly known as “Super Saturday.”

Washington, D.C. -- More than 60% of consumers will start holiday shopping on Black Friday and most will spend more than 50% of their holiday budget over the Thanksgiving weekend, according to research by the Georgetown Institute for Consumer Research, sponsored by KPMG.

Toronto -- Lowe's Canada announced it has completed changes to the company's senior leadership team and is positioned to continue to grow the company across Canada.  

The new appointments include:

Nick Padovano was appointed to the newly created position of head of operations and supply chain.. Most recently, he was senior VP, store operations at The Bay/Lord and Taylor.

Continued sales momentum at Stein Mart helped drive the company’s third quarter results, which saw both net and same-store increases.

The company reported net income for the quarter of $28 thousand compared to a net loss of $1.7 million in 2012.

"Our earnings continue to improve as a result of our continued sales momentum," said CEO Jay Stein. "We have been very focused on refining our brands, pricing and sales execution and the improvements are evident in our results."

Hoffman Estates, Ill. -- Sears Holdings widened its loss in the third quarter as sales decreased at both its Sears and Kmart units.

For the three months ended Nov. 2, Sears lost $534 million, down from a loss of $498 million a year earlier.

Revenue fell 7% to $8.27 billion from $8.86 billion mostly because it had fewer Sears and Kmart stores operating.

Same-store sales dropped 3.1%, and were down 4% at Sears' stores and declined 2.1% at Kmart stores.

Jacksonville, Fla. -- Stein Mart reported a return to profit in the third quarter, recording net income of $28,000 for the period ended Nov. 2, compared with a loss of $1.7 million last year. Results matched Wall Street expectations.

Revenue climbed 6% to $290.5 million from $273.7 million, topping Wall Street's estimate of $287.9 million. Same-store sales rose 4.8%.

Bon-Ton is looking ahead to the holiday selling season, and focusing its marketing efforts on driving shoppers not only to stores but also to its e-commerce site.

The company saw comparable store sales for the third quarter decrease 2.8%. But the company was able to narrow its loss to $0.9 million, or $0.05 per diluted share, from $10.1 million, or $0.55 per diluted share, for the third quarter of fiscal 2012.