eCommerce

Armonk, N.Y. -- IBM announced that Abercrombie & Fitch Co. is working with IBM software to help the company transform its online business to achieve greater speed and efficiency. The initiative is part of Abercombie's strategic goal to expand its direct-to-consumer capabilities and drive its e-commerce business to $1 billion.

Atlanta -- Aaron's announced that Jeannie M. Cave has been hired as the company's new VP real estate and construction. She will be responsible for a number of activities including the development of strategies that support Aaron's real estate goals and the management of the company's real estate portfolio for both company-operated and franchised stores.

Cave brings 10 years of leadership experience from Cox Enterprises.
 

New York City -- Former president Bill Clinton delivered a keynote address entitled “Embracing Our Common Humanity” to an overflow crowd Monday morning at the National Retail Federation’s 101st Annual Convention & Expo in New York.

In his speech, Clinton spoke about the inequality, instability and the unsustainable way of life which makes up the world today, and said there remains a strong connection between social opportunity and economic opportunity.

Henderson, Nev. -- A Monday report by Reuters said that online shoe retailer Zappos was hacked over the weekend, affecting 24 million customers in its database.

The retailer, which is owned by Amazon.com, said that customers' names, email addresses, billing and shipping addresses, phone numbers and the last four digits of credit cards numbers and scrambled passwords were stolen. But it said the hackers had not been able to access servers that held customers critical credit card and other payment data.

Atlanta -- Retail analytics solution provider QuantiSense said Monday that Urban Outfitters has licensed its full suite of solutions including QuantiSense Merchandising, Direct and Store Ops.

Urban selected the QuantiSense Decision Orchestration Platform, which combines business intelligence, data warehousing and sophisticated retail analytics into role-based, actionable and repeatable processes.

Target may have wanted to draw attention to its Shops at Target program at its media event in New York last week, the press in attendance appeared to be interested in one thing -- Apple.

Though the Target executives present did their best to steer questions toward the topic at hand, they failed to keep reporters from asking about the retailer's partnership with Apple. The persistent reporters, as is required by such a career path, kept at it and did manage to get a few snippets of information from the tight-lipped folks at Target.

Target may have wanted to draw attention to its Shops at Target program at its media event in New York last week, the press in attendance appeared to be interested in one thing -- Apple.

Though the Target executives present did their best to steer questions toward the topic at hand, they failed to keep reporters from asking about the retailer's partnership with Apple. The persistent reporters, as is required by such a career path, kept at it and did manage to get a few snippets of information from the tight-lipped folks at Target.

By Stephen Wyss, BDO USA, LLP

Boston -- City Sports plans to relocate its store in Suburban Square, Ardmore, Pa., into the space previously occupied by Talbots. The new location, at 8,000 sq. ft., will accommodate upgrades planned for a refreshed and fully integrated shopping experience, including the brand's new women's concept.

I have to admit it: I was shocked when I heard the news this week that Glen Senk, the widely-admired CEO of Urban Outfitters, was resigning.  Sure, the company wasn’t coming off the best of years, having battled lackluster sales throughout much of 2011. A series of fashion misses — nothing new in the always dicey world of women’s apparel — had taken their toll on profit as the retailer sought to clear slow-moving merchandise with deep discounts.