Supply Chain & Merchandising

New York -- RadioShack could receive another dose of life support. According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, Salus Capital Partners has offered to provide $500 million to RadioShack Corp. in a kind of debtor-in-possession loan used by companies to fund operations in bankruptcy.

New York -- Sports retailer Academy Sports + Outdoors has implemented Oracle Retail solutions to support growth by streamlining merchandising and inventory operations.

The 185-store chain has targeted sales growth in-store and online and, according to Oracle, as retailers manage an increasingly more complex array of customer segments and channels, success hinges on simplifying and optimizing mission-critical operations such as pricing, inventory management and allocation.

New York -- Tiffany's holiday sales dipped 1% and the luxury jewelry retailer cut its full-year profit outlook. CEO Michael Kowalski said that sales in the Americas fell slightly during November and December, while sales in Japan remained soft. Sales in the Asia-Pacific region and in Europe climbed.

New York -- The digital consumer has come of age, and a new survey by Cisco revealed that retail consumers in the U.S. prefer Internet of Everything (IoE) enabled retail experiences.
 

San Luis Obispo, Calif. -- Canada’s Home Hardware chain has jumped on the in-store pickup bandwagon, tapping Shopatron to complete an implementation of Canada’s largest dealer-owned hardware, lumber, building materials and furniture cooperative’s in-store pickup platform.

Apparently closing all of your stores and firing all of your employees is among the actions a retailer can take when it is “exploring strategic alternatives.”

Body Central Inc., which announced early this month that it was $18 million in debt and exploring strategic alternatives, has shuttered all 265 of its stores and fired 2,500 employees.

Matthews, N.C. -- Family Dollar is urging its shareholders to support a buyout offer from rival discounter Dollar Tree with less than two weeks remaining before a vote on the pending deal.  Family Dollar shareholders are scheduled to vote Jan. 22. on whether to accept the Dollar Tree offer.

New York -- Grocer Heinen’s has teamed with Symphony EYC to adopt customer-driven retailing operations that stretch from shopper, throughout the store and back to the warehouse.