Supply Chain & Merchandising

The workforce at Macy’s will swell by 50% in the coming month as the department store retailer looks to elevate service levels during the holiday season.

Macy’s said it plans to hire 85,000 workers, versus 86,000 last year, for temporary positions at its Macy's and Bloomingdale's stores, call centers, distribution centers and online fulfillment centers. The company had roughly 167,000 employees at the end of its fiscal year on Jan. 31, 2015.

Columbia, S.C. -- Industry veterans Terry Brown, Jason Tompkins, and Sam Judd last month launched Asana Partners, a retail real estate investment company headquartered in Columbia, South Carolina.

Drawing from the team's deep operational and investment background in retail real estate, including more than $15 billion in transaction activity over the last 15 years, the company will acquire, own, and operate retail properties in dynamic markets across the United States.

After an initial public stock offering earlier this year, Ollie’s Bargain Outlet Holdings has added public company governance experience to its board with the appointment of Rue21’s top executive.

Ollie’s said Robert Fisch, chairman, president and CEO of specialty apparel retailer Rue21 had joined its board and increased to seven the number of members. Prior to Rue21, Fisch was president of Casual Corner Group and he has also served as a board member at Children’s Place Retail Stores.

Amazon.com is certainly known for its expertise in integrated fulfillment, and Sears Holdings Corp. is now tapping into that knowledge base.

Sears has appointed Girish Lakshman, who most recently served as VP of worldwide transportation strategy, technology and customer returns at Amazon, as president, fulfillment.

His new role will support the company's continued efforts to fulfill member and customers' needs and advance its integrated retail strategy.

Flipkart, a leading Indian online marketplace, is naming three new technology executives with experience at some major global retail and IT firms.

Shortly after expanding its e-commerce partnership with Facebook, the cloud-based multichannel Shopify platform is teaming up with another online giant. Shopify has been selected as the preferred migration provider for Amazon Webstore, making it easier for online businesses to sell on both Amazon and other channels using Shopify.

Ikea is expanding yet another of its older U.S. stores.

The home furnishings giant has begun demolishing a covered parking structure where it will construct a new, larger store in Renton, Washington, across the 29-acre parcel from its current Seattle-area store.

Razing the building will make room for construction of the new Renton store, slated to open in spring 2017.

Actual store construction likely will commence later this year after completion of the demolition and site preparation.

Key forecasting metrics have remained essentially flat for five years, but one emerging technology offers retailers the chance for improvement. According to the sixth annual Forecasting Benchmark Study from supply chain software provider Terra Technology, companies using sensing demand systems consistently double overall forecast value-add and reduce error by 37%.