eCommerce

The NRF 2014 Conference & Exposition kicked things off Sunday, Jan. 12 with sessions examining both how social media will continue to evolve as a dominant means of customer interaction and how the brick-and-mortar store will remain a highly relevant part of the retail environment in the 21st century. Let’s look at a few highlights from each session.

Picturing Social Success

Big 5 Sporting Goods announced that their fourth-quarter sales results were affected by a lower demand year-over-year for firearms and ammunition products as well as a highly promotional retail holiday environment.  

The company reported net sales of $248 million, an increase of 1.8% from $243.6 million for the prior-year quarter. Same-store sales decreased 0.5% for the quarter versus the prior year period.

New York -- Following news that luxury giant Neiman Marcus experienced network breaches over the holiday shopping season, similar to those of Target Corp., unidentified sources told Reuters that at least three other attacks on well-known merchants could be revealed in the coming weeks.

eBay Enterprise, an eBay company and leading global provider of omnichannel solutions, has unveiled a ship-from-store SaaS initiative that retailers can deploy within 99 days to most effectively leverage their physical store inventories while gaining advantages in margin and shipping cost.

RadioShack is enlisting specialty retail industry veteran John W. Feray to help the company execute its turnaround strategy and has appointed him EVP and CFO effective Feb. 6.

Feray joins RadioShack from Dollar General, where he has been SVP of finance and strategy since 2008 under both private equity ownership and as a public company. With responsibility for financial planning and analysis, long-term strategic planning, real estate market planning and operational improvement activities, he has been credited as a key contributor to Dollar General's growth.

Men’s grooming line, HYD For Men, has announced that its Razor Shield will be sold in 183 Meijer stores beginning in February.

Razor Shield was developed to help create a liquid barrier to protect razor blades.
 

Teen and tween retailer Five Below blamed the weather for what it expects will be a substantial shortfall in fourth quarter same store sales.

For the nine week period ended Jan. 9, same store sales had declined 0.5% and by the end of the company’s fourth quarter same store sales may decline as much as 1.5%, according to the company. That is well below guidance of a 4% increase the company forecast when it released third quarter results.