Department Store

The most recent Leading National Advertisers annual report from Advertising Age shows Target posted the biggest increased in ad spending in 2010 among conventional retailers. The total amount the company spent increased 12% to $1.508 billion compared with $1.246 billion the prior year. That put the company 18th on the Ad Age list of the nation’s 100 largest advertisers. Only two retailers spent more than Target.

My husband loves Apple. In fact, I cannot remember one single trip to Mall of Louisiana (Baton Rouge) that hasn’t included a stop-in at the Apple store. There, he plays with the gadgets -- iPhones, iPads, MacBooks, iMacs, iPods -- and wanders the store, as content to browse the high-tech aisles as I am to shop the designer shoe department at Dillard’s.

PLANO, Texas — Last week, RetailingToday.com reported that former Apple executive Ron Johnson would succeed Mike Ullman as CEO of JCPenney. Today, JCPenney announced that Ullman, who was originally slated to remain on the company's board of directors indefinitely, will now be leaving the company on Feb. 1, 2012.

Cincinnati -- Macy’s has entered into a $1.5 billion bank credit agreement that will mature on June 20, 2015. It replaces a previous $2 billion facility, which was set to mature on August 30, 2012. Joint lead arrangers for the new agreement are J. P. Morgan, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo.

It was the biggest story in the retail world last week when JCPenney announced it had hired Ron Johnson as its new CEO with the incoming executive vowing to transform the way America shops by reinventing the department store. Such statements normally elicit a yawn because they are so common, but Johnson is the former SVP retail at Apple and spent the past 11 years overseeing the development and growth of the company’s wildly successful and widely heralded retail operation.

Washington, D.C. -- In a ruling that may mean new limits on class-action suits, the Supreme Court on Monday ruled for Wal-Mart Stores in the largest sex-discrimination lawsuit in history as it put the brakes on a massive job discrimination lawsuit against the chain.

NEW YORK — Macy’s announced that it will offer an exclusive collection of area rugs that have been certified by GoodWeave, an international nonprofit organization that works to ensure rugs made by hand in Nepal and India are free of child labor. The GoodWeave collection, including 20 styles available in various sizes, will be carried in select Macy’s stores in New York and New Jersey.