Direct To Consumer (DTC)

Philadelphia – Net sales at Urban Outfitters for the two months ended Dec. 31, 2013, increased to $716 million, or 8% from the same period in the previous year. Same-store retail segment net sales, which include the direct-to-consumer channel, increased 3%.

Same-store retail segment net sales increased 21% at Free People and 11% at Anthropologie and decreased 6% at Urban Outfitters. Wholesale segment net sales increased 21%.

Amazon announced a record-setting year for Marketplace Sellers, which sold more than a billion units worldwide, cumulatively worth tens of billions of dollars, in 2013.

Coppell, Texas – The Container Store Group Inc. saw its net income drop about 2%, to $5.2 million from $5.3 million, during the third quarter of fiscal 2013. This occurred while net sales grew 7.3%, to $188.3 million from $175.4 million, and same-store sales increased 4.7%.

Former Kohl’s and Carhartt merchandising executive Sue Fuller was named chief merchandising officer at Vera Bradley, an upscale retailer and designer brand looking to restore growth under the leadership of new CEO Robert Wallstrom.

Secaucus, N.J. – The Children’s Place Retail Stores has expanded its existing franchise agreement with Fawaz A. AlHokair & Co. SJSC covering retail stores in Saudi Arabia, to include opening a total of approximately 25 stores in Egypt and the Commonwealth of Independent States (C.I.S. Region) of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia and Kazakhstan, beginning in mid-2014.

New York — Faith Hope Consolo, chairman, and Joseph A. Aquino, executive VP of Douglas Elliman’s Retail Group, have arranged a third Manhattan location for Roundabout, a luxury consignment and resale retailer.

The new location between 82nd and 83rd Streets is also the brand’s second Madison Avenue store.

Unusually high community engagement, user-driven initiatives, mobile growth and a love of all things vintage — that’s the formula behind the growth of ModCloth.com, which hit $100 million in sales just a decade after it launched out of co-founder Susan Gregg Koger’s dorm room back in 2002.

Raj Jain, the former head of a joint venture between Walmart and Bharti Enterprises, has joined Bharti Retail as CEO.

Jain spent six years with the joint venture, Bharti Walmart, most recently serving as president of Walmart India. He left the joint venture in June 2013, four months before Walmart and Bharti announced they would independently pursue retail opportunities in India.

Joining Jain at Bharti Retail is his former joint venture colleague Panka Madan who will serve as CFO. Madan also served as CFO of Bharti Walmart but left the joint venture in 2012.