Data & Analytics

American Apparel announced it has appointed Brian McHale as senior VP and CIO, with responsibility for overseeing information technology and computer systems.

The Men's Wearhouse reported a dapper first quarter on the same day the company inked a 10-year deal with Macy's to sell tuxedoes.

The retailer posted net income for the first quarter ended May 2 of $10.4 million or $0.21 per share, compared to $16.5 million or $0.34 per share for the year-ago quarter. Net sales for the first quarter rose 40.4% to $885.09 million from $630.47 million in the same quarter last year. 

Troubled specialty retailer J.Crew Group Inc. says it has laid off 175 staff members and fired its chief women’s designer.

The company says the changes and business improvement initiatives will "better align with the current and future retail environment."

Batteries Plus Bulbs is upgrading its payment terminals and software to prepare for the EMV liability shift at its 650 U.S. locations.

The retailer says it has chosen the Ingenico Group's solution, which enables Batteries Plus Bulbs stores to securely accept magstripe debit and credit payment cards, and positions the stores to accept virtually any form of payment including EMV chip & sign, EMV chip & pin, contactless/NFC and other types of mobile wallets in the future.

E-commerce traffic increased 18% in the first quarter, according to the latest Shopping Index from Demandware.

The report measures digital commerce growth and identifies the trends driving that growth based on analysis of same site activity over time. The latest Demandware Shopping Index reveals that shopper attraction, which measures the number of shoppers, was up 18% in the first quarter of 2015 over the first quarter last year and drove 83% of the digital commerce growth.

Restoration Hardware earnings surged in the first quarter on strong sales, giving a boost to the company as it embarks on expanding its business with new stores with larger showrooms.

For the first quarter ended May 2, Restoration Hardware reported a profit of $7.2 million, or 17 cents a share, up from $1.8 million, or four cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding tax impacts, a prior-year litigation claim and other items, per-share earnings rose to 23 cents from 18 cents. Revenue increased 15% to $422.4 million.

Chicago -- Retail was the most compromised industry in 2014, making up 43% of breach investigations, according to a study by Trustwave that gathered data from 574 breach investigations the company conducted in 2014 across 15 countries. Retail made up 43% of the investigations, followed by food and beverage, which made up 13% of the investigations.

The “2015 Trustwave Global Security Report” found that 64% of the breaches in the retail industry were of e-commerce assets and 27% were of POS assets.

New York -- Twitter announced on Wednesday that its advertisers can use the data the social giant has been collecting on which apps its users download for targeted ads.

Los Angeles -- American Apparel announced it has appointed Brian McHale as senior VP and CIO, with responsibility for overseeing information technology and computer systems. In addition to providing critical support to American Apparel’s onsite hardware and software applications, McHale will also lead the development and expansion of the company’s retail digital capabilities alongside Thoryn Stephens, recently appointed chief digital officer.

New York -- Bloomingdale’s chairman and CEO Tony Spring talked about one of the company’s top-selling products (frozen yogurt!) and much more on Tuesday at the Retail Marketing Society’s “Reinventing the Store” conference in New York.

Here are 10 take-away quotes from his presentation:

“Our Forty Carrots frozen yogurt is one of our best-selling items. We have customers who come into our store five times a week for it.”