Retail

Boucherville, Quebec - Canadian home improvement retailer Rona Inc. is closing 11 non-profitable stores as part of a broader restructuring plan. Rona will also reduce administrative, marketing, merchandising and distribution expenses and eliminate 125 administrative jobs. In February 2013, Rona cut 200 jobs.

Rona rejected an unsolicited $1.72 billion USD buyout offer from Lowe’s in August 2012.

San Jose – Brick-and-mortar retail sales soared during this past spring, according to new metrics from RetailNext. Using its in-store analytics platform to collect metrics on millions of shopping trips to department stores and specialty retailers nationwide, RetailNext studied and released its analysis of traffic, conversion, sales, and average transaction values (ATV) for the spring season, including the four holidays of Easter, Mother’s Day, Memorial Day and Father’s Day, as well as the days leading up to Father’s Day and Easter Sunday.

Demand forecasting helps Curacao react to cultural shifts

Any good retailer gets to know its customers, and not just their product preferences but also who they are, where they come from and what they aspire to. This type of intimate knowledge allows retailers to forecast and meet product demand with the highest degree of accuracy.

ERP solution helps online sports retailer Fanatics respond to customer demand

Retail at its core is a pretty straightforward industry. Regardless of a retailer's vertical, sales channel(s), customer base, or any other distinguishing characteristic, at the end of the day the goal is pretty much the same. Jay Omdahl, VP enterprise resource planning for online sports merchandise retailer Fanatics, sums it up succinctly: "Get the best product at the right time to the right place."

Oklahoma City – Hobby Lobby has received permission from the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver to continue its challenge of the federal mandate requiring for-profit employers to offer certain types of birth control coverage as part of their employee health care plans. As a result, Hobby Lobby will at least temporarily avoid having to start paying millions of dollars in fines for non-compliance next week.

Toano, Va. – Boston-based class action law firm Block & Leviton said it is investigating claims that Lumber Liquidators Holdings sold floors to consumers with illegal levels of formaldehyde. Independent testing conducted at two different IAS-certified laboratories has reportedly revealed formaldehyde levels as high 0.17 ppm, three-and-a-half times the government mandated maximum emission level, in Mayflower flooring.

New York – Barnes & Noble is releasing an updated Nook App for Windows 8 with a new user interface, faster performance and features including highlighting, annotations, dictionary lookup, find in books, improved shop and search functionality, and the ability to sideload ePub and PDF files from local drives.