Department Store

Mattress Firm has tapped a veteran energy marketing executive to head up its marketing efforts.    The company has appointed Sicily Dickenson as its chief marketing officer. Dickenson brings more than 13 years of experience in digital marketing, marketing communications, creative services and brand marketing.    

Retail sales sizzled in January, beating expectations. Even the struggling department store sector managed to beat the odds.   Retail sales, excluding automobiles and gasoline, grew 0.4% in January, according to the National Retail Federation. (The numbers exclude automobiles, gasoline stations and restaurants)  

Nordstrom announced the second Big Apple location for its off-price division.   Nordstrom Rack will open at Durst Organization's mixed-use building at 855 Sixth Avenue.    The approximately 46,500-sq.-ft. store is scheduled to open in fall 2017. It occupy the first three floors of the newly constructed office/residential tower. The location is on the corner of 31st Street, two blocks from Herald Square.  

Each moment, it seems, something new emerges to compete for our attention. Our desktop browsers manage dozens of tabs simultaneously, even though we can only process the information contained on those pages one tab at a time. Our phones ping away, constantly keeping us connected to an infinite virtual world.    

The formerly high-flying Nasty Gal has been brought down to earth — and not in a good way.   The bankrupt fashion retailer will close its two Los Angeles-area stores by the end of February, the Wall Street Journal reported.    On Feb. 8, U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California approved the sale of Nasty Gal’s intellectual property and customer database to British online fashion retailer Boohoo.com, which is seeking to speed up its expansion in the United States. 

Burlington has been announced as the replacement for Sears at PREIT’s Magnolia Mall in Florence, South Carolina. Earlier this month, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Von Maur were introduced as new tenants of Sears spaces that had been recaptured by the Philadelphia-based developer.  

The year kicks off with a respectable set of retail sales numbers that show continued momentum in the consumer economy. The overall growth rate of 4.9% is a little way above the average monthly growth rate of 3.3% recorded in 2016, something that will give retailers some cheer as they head into 2017.  

The CEOs of Gap, Best Buy, Target Corp., J.C. Penney and several other national retailers met with President Trump on Wednesday to discuss tax reform and to make their case against the so-called border tax adjustment.