Department Store

MANY HAPPY RETURNS

It's no secret that the volume of returned items goes up dramatically during the holidays, and providing a streamlined returns mechanism that effectively guards against fraud is a big and often overlooked part of the in-store holiday experience. Here are two solutions that take a slightly different approach to helping retailers deliver a returns process that rewards good customers, while detecting those with less savory motives.

Whatever happened to the customer? It’s a question I’ve been asking myself more and more lately, and one that more than a few national brands should be working harder to answer. At a time when retail is evolving in exciting ways, one of the most disappointing trends over the last several years is a conspicuous (and costly) lack of focus on the customer.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Following a difficult start to the year, leading branded footwear and accessories retailer DSW has rebounded with an increase in sales that resulted in solid quarterly profit results for the second quarter ended Aug. 3. 

The company reported sales of $562 million for the quarter, up 9.7% from $512 million for the prior-year period. Comparable-store sales increased 4.4% for the quarter on top of the prior-year quarter’s 4.2% increase.

Hoffman Estates, Ill. -- “The Chore Score,” an app that allows parents to create chore lists for their kids with rewards that can be redeemed at Sears stores or Sears.com, won the recent Sears Startup & Developer Challenge. The contest, held for three days, featured more than 150 participants using the Sears development API to create apps that would strengthen the experience of the Sears Shop Your Way membership program.

At a time of year when consumers are still caught up in end-of-summer barbecues and back-to-school shopping, retailers are getting caught up in the rush of holiday planning. Holiday sales can account for 20% to 40% of a retailer’s total annual sales, according to the National Retail Federation, and a successful holiday can turn around a bad year or make a good year even better.

But the holiday season presents challenges as well as opportunities.

Millennials and boomers are driving an urban push

Generations after people deserted cities for the suburbs, young millennial-generation adults and older baby-boomer adults are moving back downtown.

Retailers aren't far behind, and new, seemingly instant neighborhoods — complete with housing, retail, offices and other forms of real estate — are springing up in redevelopment areas of cities across the country.

Des Moines, Iowa — The Des Moines Area Community College opened its school year with a new campus: a 65,000-sq.-ft. former J.C. Penney store located on the main level of Southridge Mall.

The mall’s owner, Macerich sold the space to DMACC for $1. The school, which has three other campuses in the Des Moines metro area, has invested $13 million in design, construction, equipment, labs and classrooms. Major donations will be announced this fall.

ST. LOUIS — Brown Shoe Company saw a shift in sales to the second quarter from the third quarter which helped deliver net sales of $621.7 million for the second quarter ended Aug. 3, up 10% from $564.9 million last year.