Mass Merchant

Mandeville, La. -- Stirling Properties announced the addition of Whole Foods Market to the tenant lineup at Premier Centre, a 273,000-sq.-ft. shopping center near the intersection of U.S. Highway 190 and North Causeway Boulevard in Mandeville, Louisiana.

Teens will soon have fewer choices when it comes to shopping for the latest fashions.

Deb Shops announced it has won court approval to launch going-out-of-business sales that will culminate with the closing of nearly 300 stores.

“We thank our many customers and dedicated employees for their tremendous loyalty over the years and are very proud of our associates’ commitment to maintaining the high level of customer service we are known for throughout this transition,” said Dawn Robertson, CEO at Deb Shops.

Boston -- Gordon Brothers Group and Hilco Merchant Resources will begin going-out-of-business sales at all 287 Deb Shops retail locations nationwide beginning Jan. 9. Deb Shops, a Philadelphia-based women’s fashion discount retailer, filed for Chapter 11 protection on Dec. 4, 2014.  

New York -- Retail spending growth for the holiday period totaled 3.2%, and Christmas Eve, not Black Friday, was the busiest spending day of the year. Those are just two of the findings in the First Data SpendTrend annual holiday wrap-up.

The report, which includes only card-based forms of payment, is based on analysis of over 400,000 retail merchant locations across the nation, from Nov. 1, 2014 through Jan. 4, 2015, and had processing activity with First Data for the same period during the previous year.  

Reuters is reporting a new complicating factor in the ongoing saga of efforts by Dollar Tree and Dollar General to buy Family Dollar.

Some 20 state attorneys general have joined the federal antitrust investigation of competing bids by Dollar General Corp. and Dollar Tree Inc. to buy Family Dollar Stores Inc., a development that potentially complicates the companies' efforts to win U.S. approval for a deal.

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San Francisco – Gap Inc. should be happy to greet this year’s holiday season, based on its performance in the just-concluded 2014 holiday season. Net sales for the November and December 2014 holiday shopping season were up 4% and same-store sales were up 3%, compared with the previous year.

Surging sales at Old Navy helped parent company Gap Inc. post an increase in same store sales for November and December.

Gap’s same store sales for the November and December holiday shopping season increased 3%.

For December alone, the figure rose 1%, slightly above Wall Street estimates for a 0.7% increase, according to Thomson Reuters.

It was a happy holiday from a sales standpoint at Steinmart with the company reporting a 5.8 percent same store sales increase for December.

The 5.8 percent comp increase for the December period ended Jan. 3 follows a 4.8 percent gain in November and a 4.5 percent increase during the prior December.