eCommerce

As part of Chain Store Age’s lead-up coverage to RECon 2012, to be held May 20-23 in Las Vegas, we talked with DLC’s Daniel Taub about what his expectations are for the big real estate show. Visit DLC’s booth at RECon, Upper South Hall, S2235.

WASHINGTON — Tanna Dang, a boutique owner in Honolulu, Hawaii was awarded the top $25,000 prize in the National Retail Federation’s inaugural “This is Retail” video contest. Florida’s Kim Williams of The Polka Dot press came in second place and will take home $15,000 and Illinois’ Susan Kaufman will take home $10,000 for third place. Nearly 1 million votes were cast by the public through NRF’s Retail Means Jobs website to choose the contest winners.

New York -- J.C. Penney executives laid out further details of their strategy going forward during the chain’s quarterly conference call with investors. The call followed the release of J.C. Penney’s first quarter results, when it reported a worse-then-expected loss of $163 million, and a 19% drop in same-store sales.

J.C. Penney said it would launch a new private label apparel brand, jcp, for both men and women. The brand is set to debut in August.

Framingham, Mass. -- Staples Inc. said its first-quarter net income fell 6% to $187.1 million, compared to $198.2 million a year ago, hurt by weakness abroad.

Total sales fell 1.1% to $6.1 billion. International sales, which account for roughly 20% of the company’s total revenue, dropped 8% to $1.2 billion. In the United States, Staples’ revenue was flat.
 

FRAMINGHAM, Mass. — First it was OfficeMax, now Staples reported sales and earnings that were reflective of a struggling retail sector. The company reported that total sales for the first quarter of 2012 were $6.1 billion, a decrease of 1% in U.S. dollars and flat on a local currency basis compared with the first quarter of 2011. Net income for the first quarter of 2012 decreased 6% year-over-year to $187 million. Diluted earnings per share, on a GAAP basis, decreased 4% t to 27 cents from 28 cents achieved in the first quarter of 2011.

New York -- Dylan's Candy Bar will open its first West Coast location in Los Angeles, this summer. The 2,500-sq.-ft. store will be located in a historic landmark: the Original Farmers Market on the corner of Third and Fairfax.

“We opened our first store 10 years ago in NYC fulfilling a childhood dream of mine to create the largest, most magical candy store,” said Dylan Lauren, founder and CEO of Dylan's Candy Bar. “Now I'm thrilled to bring my love of color, design and the joy of candy from coast to coast!”

MINNEAPOLIS — First quarter earnings at Target exceeded a profit forecast the company increased last month after a strong start to the quarter.

Framingham, Mass. -- The TJX Cos. reported Tuesday that net income rose to $419 million for the quarter ended April 28. On an earnings per share basis, adjusted profit results showed a 41% increase over the prior year period.

Sales increased 11% to $5.8 billion and same-store sales climbed 8%.

Carol Meyrowitz, CEO of TJX Cos., said: “We saw significant increases in customer traffic across all divisions in the first quarter over last year, which we believe points to the strength of our values and our brand content.”