Mass Merchant

New York City -- Nordstrom plans to open a Nordstrom Rack in Farmington, Conn., located just outside of Hartford. This will be the first Nordstrom Rack in Connecticut.

The new 35,000 sq-ft. store is scheduled to open during spring 2012 at West Farm Shopping Center.
 

SCHAUMBURG, Ill. — Walmart has returned to the consumer packaged goods industry's information sharing model through a new cooperation agreement with Nielsen.

NAPERVILLE, Ill. — OfficeMax announced that Steve Parsons has been appointed EVP and chief human resources officer, effective July 25.  In this position, Parsons will report to Ravi Saligram, president and CEO of OfficeMax, and will be responsible for all aspects of global human resources for the company, including talent management, compensation and benefits, training, leadership development, recruitment, diversity, and internal and corporate communications.

NEW YORK — Macy’s announced that its Karl Lagerfeld capsule collection will arrive in about 235 Macy's stores and on Macys.com beginning Aug. 31.

“To me Macy’s is the perfect department store in the United States where everybody can find what they're looking for without ruining their budget,” said Karl Lagerfeld. “That’s why I am happy to make this limited collection just for Macy’s.”

Less than six months into her role as Walmart’s EVP global customer insights, Cindy Davis rocked the retail analytics world this week with news that Walmart would resume sharing sales data with Nielsen.

The development comes as Walmart is looking to do a better job of leveraging shopper insights as a means to grow sales and follows the creation in February of a new global customer insights team led by Davis. She previously served as EVP membership and marketing at Sam’s Club and joined the company in the fall of 2007.

When the Supreme Court ruled that a sex discrimination case against Walmart wasn’t worth of class action status that was supposed to end things. Wrong.

New York City -- Target, Kohl's and J.C. Penney ranked highest among discounters in consumer perception in the first half of 2011, according to YouGov BrandIndex. The company interviews 5,000 people each weekday from a representative U.S. population sample, more than 1.2 million interviews per year.

Here is YouGov’s Retail Buzz scores for discounters in the first half of 2011:

New York City -- Wal-Mart Stores said its Walmart and Sam's Club divisions will now report their U.S. sales data to Nielsen Holdings, which will become the retailer's primary provider for market information, tools and training, the companies said in a joint announcement on Thursday.

Nielsen gathers and analyzes sales information from a variety of U.S. chain stores, giving manufacturers, Wall Street analysts and others a glimpse at how products are selling.

NEW YORK — Kmart is changing its approach to fashion with a new campaign focused on individual style rather than name brands or trends. The campaign, titled "Money can't buy style," will debut this fall and will feature non-actors in Kmart looks they've created themselves.

NEW YORK — Reality TV star Audrina Patridge will continue her partnership with Iconix Brand Group and will appear in a television commercial for the company's Bongo brand, which is sold exclusively at Kmart and Sears.