Mass Merchant

Seattle -- Nordstrom said Friday it will shutter its underperforming University Mall store in Orem, Utah. The 122,000-sq.-ft. store is slated to close on Feb. 24.

The store, which opened March 29, 2002, didn’t perform to company standards, according to Nordstrom.

The 2011 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards program recognized retailers from across the nation. Several of the regional retail winners are reviewed below.

Mindy Grossman/CEO/HSN

Every year, in December, Chain Store Age examines the northeastern region — New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont and Rhode Island — and, in 2011, there appears to be some positive momentum.

Retail real estate executives will tell you that we’re not completely out of the woods yet, but the industry is certainly inching in the right direction.

Retailers have pulled out the stops this holiday season, especially when it comes to experimenting with cutting-edge digital technologies. But innovation shouldn’t be reserved for the holidays — it is something that should be infused into the shopping experience all year long.

New York City -- Mattress Firm Holding Corp. raised about $105.6 million after pricing its initial public offering at the top of its expected range.

The retailer priced the IPO of 5.6 million shares at $19 each. It had expected shares to sell initially for $17 to $19 each.

Mattress Firm said it will use most of the offering's net proceeds — about $95 million after expenses — to repay $84.4 million in debt and pay fees to its biggest shareholder, Boston private equity firm J.W. Childs.

New York City -- Target Corp. will sell off Zellers’ prescription customer files to other companies and start its own business from scratch once it launches Target in Canada, according to reports in The Globe and Mail.

While Zellers pharmacies are money-makers, keeping them open while Target closes the stores for remodeling would be costly and complicated, according to the report.

The potential suitors for the files are likely to include Shoppers Drug Mart Corp. and Katz Group Canada Ltd., the report said.

San Francisco -- Gap Inc. reported Thursday that profit for the third quarter dropped 36% to $193 million, compared with $303 million a year earlier, as the retailer continued a deep discounting trend and encountered rising production costs. Still, results beat analysts’ expectations.

WASHINGTON — Up to 152 million people plan to shop Black Friday Weekend, compared with the 138 million who planned to do so last year, according to a preliminary Black Friday shopping survey, conducted for the National Retail Federation by BIGresearch. According to the survey, 74 million people say they will definitely hit the stores and another 77 million are waiting to see if the bargains are worth the hassle of Black Friday.

SAN BRUNO, Calif. — Walmart announced that it is offering free shipping on electronics more than $45 through Dec. 19 at Walmart.com.

HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill. — Sears Holdings remains positive about its future despite reporting a wider loss for the third quarter and comps declines across its retail segments. The company reported a net loss of $421 million, or $3.95 per diluted share, for the third quarter of 2011, compared with a net loss of $218 million, or $1.98 loss per diluted share, in 2010.