Sales & Marketing

New York -- Macy’s on Friday announced the second phase of the four-year renovation of its Herald Square flagship in New York City. 

The project will include the completion of the main, mezzanine and second floors of the store bridging both the Broadway and Seventh Ave. buildings by holiday 2013. 

PETALUMA, Calif. — Sport Chalet, a full-service specialty sporting goods retailer, will join MarketLive, a provider of e-commerce technology for high-growth merchants, to present a joint case study at the Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition.

The case study will highlight how Sport Chalet has achieved strong online sales growth by leveraging MarketLive's content management features to create a unique and compelling brand experience for its customers.

New York -- Delia’s reported Thursday that its loss more than doubled year-over-year, as the multichannel retailer lost $9.2 million in the quarter ended May 4, compared with a loss of $4.3 million last year.

Revenue slid 15% to $35 million, and same-store sales fell 7.1%. Amid the disappointing results, the company has appointed Tracy Gardner as CEO, effective June 5, moving over from his current position as COO.

Minneapolis -- Target said it will introduce its Beauty Concierge program to 27 stores in Washington D.C., Northern Virginia and Baltimore on June 28. The program calls for an on-staff “Beauty Concierge” – a trained, brand-agnostic beauty advisor – who provides personal-care advice and beauty tips in the Target beauty aisle.

NEW YORK — Nickelodeon has launched a store within a store in Toys"R"Us Times Square. The Nick Shop is 1,000 sq. ft. and offers exclusive New York-branded products, such as kids and adult apparel, accessories, plush toys and home goods featuring Nickelodeon characters.

Merchandise showcasing Dora the Explorer, Bubble Guppies, Team Umizoomi, Winx Club, SpongeBob SquarePants and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is priced from $5.99 to $49.99. The shop also has an assortment of Nickelodeon-branded toys, books and DVDs.

New York -- Consumer sentiment for the week ended May 27 maintained a near five-year high level, according to the Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index on Thursday.

Crediting an improving economy and healing personal finances, Americans are expressing continued optimism, as the Index was at minus 29.7 in the period compared with minus 29.4 a week earlier. The margin of error for the figure is 3 percentage points.

According to Bloomberg, views on the current state of the economy matched a mid-April reading as the strongest since January 2008.

Columbus, Ohio -- Express Inc. reported Thursday that its third-quarter net income fell 23% to $32.4 million, compared with $42.1 million in the same period last year. Results, impacted by heavier discounting and higher costs, still beat Wall Street’s estimates.  

Revenue climbed 3% to $508.5 million, solidly topping analysts’ estimate of $498 million and prompting the apparel retailer to lift its full-year earnings forecast. Same-store sales were flat in the quarter, after a 4% gain last year.

ABILENE, Kan. — Broad-line retailer Alco Stores has promoted Ricardo Clemente to SVP of human resources, store operations and loss prevention.

Clemente, who graduated from New Mexico State University with a bachelor of science degree in biology and business management, has more than 20 years of retail experience. He joined Alco Stores in 2011 as a district manager. Since then he has held increasingly responsible positions, serving most recently as VP of stores and human resources.