Direct To Consumer (DTC)

Cross-border expansion is on the rise and an extensive new study from JLL identifies the top 50 major cities worldwide that offer the top growth prospects.

J.Crew customers on Saturday received a surprise in their email accounts — a letter from the CEO and chairman of the company, Mickey Drexler.

In the note, Drexler recounted how he was recently told by a shopper that the J.Crew she loves "is back.” He then asked customers to come into stores or check out the J. Crew e-commerce site to see what she was talking about, and also requested they email him directly with their thoughts. ([email protected].)

The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the hottest topics in retail technology. While there has been a lot of talk about IoT’s status as a game-changer for retail, there has been less discussion on exactly how it will drive industry transformation.

Here are three specific ways IoT will bring about a new era in retail operations.

Automatic shopping

Duluth Holdings just put a key element of its growth strategy in place, choosing cloud commerce solutions provider Demandware to integrate its physical and digital presence.

Going to market under the banner of Duluth Trading Company, the retailer said it selected Demandware to optimize is digital and omnichannel growth strategies.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the hottest topics in retail technology. While there has been a lot of talk about IoT’s status as a game-changer for retail, there has been less discussion on exactly how it will drive industry transformation.

Here are three specific ways IoT will bring about a new era in retail operations.

Automatic shopping

Aeropostale Inc. preparing to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy as soon as this month, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Aeropostale has recorded three consecutive years of losses as its struggles to deal with a teen audience whose spending tastes now favor fast-fashion giants such as H&M as well as online retailers. The chain operates some 800 stores nationwide.

Consumers who want free two-day shipping of their Amazon.com orders but don’t want to make an upfront commitment have a new option.

Amazon is now making Prime membership available to U.S. customers on a month-by-month basis for $10.99 per month. Previously, Prime had only been available for $99 per year, which breaks down to $8.25 per month.

ModCloth, known for its indie and vintage-inspired styles, appointed Phil Neri as chief financial officer (CFO), starting April 15.

Neri joins ModCloth with over two decades of financial and operational experience in the consumer, online and multichannel retail sector, most recently serving as CFO at home and lifestyle brand Serena & Lily since 2011.

In a first, Tiffany & Co. will sell its jewelry online, on a site other than its own.

Tiffany has entered into a limited collaboration with online retailer Net-A-Porter to make select Tiffany items available for purchase on the global fashion site.

“With their recognized edit and fashion authority, Net-A-Porter will re-introduce Tiffany as more than the legendary jeweler, but an expression of personal style,” said Philippe Galtie, senior vice president of international sales at Tiffany & Co.

Retailers have long been interacting with customers via Facebook, but the social network is making a big push to become a full-fledged CRM platform.

Among the announcements Facebook made at its F8 developers conference this week was a beta release of its Messenger chat platform with bots and a new Send/Receive application programming interface (API).