News

Supervalu reduced its organizational structure from three divisions to two and name Kevin Kemp president of the east region and Bill Chew president of the west region.

The company did not indicate what roles Kemp and Chew played in the organization previously, but did note that the east region will be headquartered in Mechanicsville, VA and the west region will be based in Hopkins, MN near the company’s Eden Prairie headquarters.

Gigwalk, a leading provider of crowdsourced solutions to retailers and CPG companies, just surpassed the 500,000th member of its mobile workforce and celebrated the occasion by securing an additional $10 million in funding.

Playing in the value priced fashion space is a challenging proposition and one of the leaders in the segment doesn’t expect conditions to get easier this year.

The Cato Corporation, operator of 1,320 stores focused on value conscious shoppers, had a challenging fourth quarter like a lot of retailers and chairman, ceo and president John Cato expects the pain could linger this year.

With technology continuing to reshape the store experience, global retail real estate leader Simon Property Group is upping its digital game with the creation of a new venture capital group.

The company, which owns or has an interest in 325 retail properties encompassing 243 million square feet, has created Simon Ventures Group for the purpose of investing in retail innovation focused on opportunities that enhance the shopping experience.

Bad weather and a tepid economy claimed another retail victim on Thursday as family footwear retailer Shoe Carnival posted weak sales and profits.

The operator of 379 stores said sales during its 13 week fourth quarter ended February 1 fell to $200.3 million compared to $205.7 million during the 14 week fourth quarter the prior year. Same store sales declined 2.5%. Profits during the period fell more sharply to $600,000, or three cents a share, from $3.2 million, or 13 cents a share the prior year, as gross margins contracted to 28.5% from 29.3%.

New York -- As part of minority eBay shareholder Carl Icahn’s ongoing battle to separate eBay from sister company PayPal, the activist investor on Wednesday urged fellow eBay shareholders in an open letter to sell 20% of its PayPal unit in an IPO.

The latest move, which Icahn said would prompt a stand-alone PayPal while preserving the synergies between the pair of companies, is softer than Icahn’s January announcement that he wanted a full spinoff of PayPal from eBay.  

San Francisco -- Guess Inc. saw fourth-quarter profits slide 4% on softer sales in the three-month period.

Net income fell to $69.6 million from $72.5 million, and revenue for the quarter ended Feb. 1 dipped to $768.4 million from $815.1 million. Revenue results still beat Wall Street expectations of $758 million.

By Dave Richards, Accenture

We shop almost every day – picking something up at the drug store or buying lunch, clothes shopping or getting groceries, looking for a gift or checking out a promotion – and we are doing this on the way to work, at work, at night while watching TV, online, at a store and increasingly across mobile devices. There is one thing that unites consumers in all of these instances: we expect the experience to be unified, personalized, constant, connected and, above all, seamless.
 

Anaheim, Calif. – Pacific Sunwear of California Inc. reported a net loss of $22.5 million during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2013, up from a net loss of $19.8 million in the same period a year earlier. Net sales dropped 2% to $218.6 million $222.8 million, while same-store sales rose 2%.

Pacific Sunwear cited the 53rd week in fiscal 2012 as negatively affecting its comparative fiscal 2013 results. Looking ahead, the retailer expects a same-store sales increase of 1 to 4% and revenues of $169 million to $174 million during fiscal 2014.

New York -- The Deloitte Consumer Spending Index remained flat in February 2014, showing only a marginal change. The Index tracks consumer cash flow as an indicator of future consumer spending.

The Index, which comprises four components, tax burden, initial unemployment claims, real wages and real home prices, ticked down slightly to 3.9 from 4.0 last month. Highlights of the Index include:

Tax Burden: The tax rate stayed at 11.8%, consistent with recent months.