eCommerce

Fremont, Calif. — Men's Wearhouse on Thursday announced it had signed a 10-year agreement with Macy's to operate men's tuxedo rental shops inside 300 Macy’s locations. The shops are expected to be located in or near the men’s department.

Men's Wearhouse will begin operating 17 pilot tuxedo shops in fall 2015,  and expects the remaining shops to be open by fall 2016. Macy's and Men's Wearhouse will also collaborate to develop a digital tuxedo rental shop on macys.com.

Low-price grocery chain Aldi is coming to Southern California, as the retailer hastens plans to open at least 45 stores in that state by the end of 2016.

The retailer says it plans to hire more than 1,100 people to work in its Southern California stores, as well as at the company's regional headquarters and warehouse in Moreno Valley, Calif. 

Troubled specialty retailer J.Crew Group Inc. says it has laid off 175 staff members and fired its chief women’s designer.

The company says the changes and business improvement initiatives will "better align with the current and future retail environment."

E-commerce traffic increased 18% in the first quarter, according to the latest Shopping Index from Demandware.

The report measures digital commerce growth and identifies the trends driving that growth based on analysis of same site activity over time. The latest Demandware Shopping Index reveals that shopper attraction, which measures the number of shoppers, was up 18% in the first quarter of 2015 over the first quarter last year and drove 83% of the digital commerce growth.

Restoration Hardware earnings surged in the first quarter on strong sales, giving a boost to the company as it embarks on expanding its business with new stores with larger showrooms.

For the first quarter ended May 2, Restoration Hardware reported a profit of $7.2 million, or 17 cents a share, up from $1.8 million, or four cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding tax impacts, a prior-year litigation claim and other items, per-share earnings rose to 23 cents from 18 cents. Revenue increased 15% to $422.4 million.

Chicago -- Retail was the most compromised industry in 2014, making up 43% of breach investigations, according to a study by Trustwave that gathered data from 574 breach investigations the company conducted in 2014 across 15 countries. Retail made up 43% of the investigations, followed by food and beverage, which made up 13% of the investigations.

The “2015 Trustwave Global Security Report” found that 64% of the breaches in the retail industry were of e-commerce assets and 27% were of POS assets.

Los Angeles -- American Apparel announced it has appointed Brian McHale as senior VP and CIO, with responsibility for overseeing information technology and computer systems. In addition to providing critical support to American Apparel’s onsite hardware and software applications, McHale will also lead the development and expansion of the company’s retail digital capabilities alongside Thoryn Stephens, recently appointed chief digital officer.

Sidney, Neb. -- Cabela’s Inc. will open a 50,000-sq.-ft. store in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Upon opening, it will become the first Cabela’s location in Nova Scotia and second in Atlantic Canada, joining the Moncton, New Brunswick store opened in May.

The retailer expects construction on the store to begin in 2016, and anticipates a 2017 opening. It will be located in the Dartmouth Crossing development near the intersection of Lakeview Drive and Wright Avenue. North American Development is the developer.
 

Seattle -- Nordstrom announced plans to open a full-line store in a new open-air retail promenade to be built by Caruso Affiliated, in Carlsbad, California.

The 124,000-sq.-ft. store is scheduled to open fall 2018 and will be the fifth Nordstrom full-line store in the greater San Diego area. The company opened its first Nordstrom in San Diego at Fashion Valley in 1981.

New York -- Bloomingdale’s chairman and CEO Tony Spring talked about one of the company’s top-selling products (frozen yogurt!) and much more on Tuesday at the Retail Marketing Society’s “Reinventing the Store” conference in New York.

Here are 10 take-away quotes from his presentation:

“Our Forty Carrots frozen yogurt is one of our best-selling items. We have customers who come into our store five times a week for it.”