Retail

New York -- The costs related to Target's  data breach have now exceeded $200 million for financial institutions, according to  the Consumer Bankers Association and the Credit Union National Association, the Associated Press reported. The $200 million figure does not include the cost of any a fraudulent activity, which would push the cost of the breach to the industry higher as consumers are not held liable.

The two trade associations said that 21.8 million of the 40 million compromised credit and debit cards have been replaced.

Syracuse, N.Y. — Junior fashion retailer, Lexy, has expanded into a new 3,098-sq.-ft. store at Moreno Valley Mall in Moreno Valley, Calif. The new store opened on Feb. 14.

Managed by Spinoso Real Estate Group, the center is home to 130 stores and restaurants including a number of new arrivals. Crunch Fitness recently moved into a 20,000-sq.-ft space. Junior fashion retailer, Image, opened in December 2013.

Richard N. Cabela, co-founder and chairman emeritus of the $3.6 billion chain of 50 Cabela’s stores, has died at his home in Sidney, Neb.

Cabela served as chairman of the board until June 2013, when he transitioned to chairman emeritus and Jim Cabela became chairman. Cabela and his wife, Mary, and brother, Jim, founded Cabela’s in 1961. He is survived by his wife, Mary, and their nine children and their families, as well as two sisters and three brothers.

Kimberly-Clark North America has named Grant LaMontagne as president of customer development. In his new role, LaMontagne will lead all sales and customer development activities for the company’s operations in North America and will report to KCNA group president Michael Hsu.

LaMontagne joins KCNA from Clorox, where he was most recently SVP and GM for Clorox Professional Products business, which includes the health care, janitorial/sanitary and institutional foods channels.

Washington, D.C. -- The Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) has entered into a partnership with the National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance (NCFTA) to enhance cyber security information sharing and expand retailers’ proactive and vigilant approach to cyber threats to protect consumers against criminals.

Abilene, Kansas – A group called Concerned Alco Stockholders (CAS), led shareholders David Pointer and Dilip Singh, it intends to mail its own proxy statement to stockholders of Alco Stores Inc. for the purpose of giving Alco stockholders the opportunity to vote for new board members at the Alco 2014 annual meeting of stockholders.

While we’re only just getting started on 2014, already one of the big retail stories is store closings. While the economy is far from robust, we aren’t in a recession either, and so at first these closings might seem a little surprising. I don’t see it that way, however: The recent spate of planned store closing for 2014 is exactly what we should expect from an industry in transition. It’s not a crisis, so much as it is a realignment.

Omnichannel marketers have gained a new personalization weapon to engage with shoppers thanks to a partnership between nGage Labs and Web Decisions.

The firms announced a new arrangement that combines nGage’s personalized mobile customer engagement capabilities with Web Decision’s omnichannel marketing database solutions to create a fully integrated database-drive mobile customer engagement solution.