News

Menomonee Falls, Wis. – Kohl’s Department Stores will be the exclusive department store retail partner for The Color Run, a national paint race event series. Select Kohl’s stores will serve as the packet pick-up location in more than 100 cities across the county.

Kohl’s will have a social presence at each race and will encourage participants to take and share celebratory photos with their friends and family across social accounts using #MakeYourMove.

Many U.S. retailers have difficulty being successful in the Great White North of Canada. Now that Target is exiting, can Walmart fill the gap? A new article suggests that it can, if Walmart works at it hard enough.

Financial blog The Motley Fool reports that Walmart can succeed where Target failed. 

San Luis Obispo – In what could be a preview of Sunday’s Super Bowl performance, Patriots fans have been outselling Seahawks fans overall in the month of January by 258%. According to data from Shopatron, although in total Patriots fans have spent more, individually their Seahawks counterparts have been more zealous, spending an average of 15% more than Patriots fans on each individual order.

Franklin, Tenn. – About four- in-10 retailers plans on using both Apple Pay (43%) and predictive analytics (42%) by the end of 2015. According to a new study from IHL Group, “Retail 2018 – Retail Transformed,” things are looking up for both store growth and IT spend.

Neither a surge in online sales nor a rebounding U.S. economy has been enough to lift Ikea, as the global furnishings retailer reported flat profits for 2014.

Ikea, which operates 315 stores in 27 countries, said net profit for its fiscal year through August rose 0.4% from the previous year to $3.76 billion, far slower than the 3% growth the retailer logged last year, and its 8% growth in 2012.

Analysts say the results show that IKEA is sticking to its strategy of lowering prices and broadening its e-commerce offering.

Gap Inc. has implemented yet another management shake-up, this time eliminating its creative director.

Rebecca Bay, whom the apparel retailer brought in from Hennes & Mauritz in September 2012 to help revive its namesake brand, has left the company.

The retailer also said that it has named Gap Inc. veteran Scott Key as general manager of customer experience, overseeing a newly created e-commerce and marketing organization, as the company aims to sharpen its focus on customers.

Cary, N.C. – The Pantry Inc. is heading into its pending merger with Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. in a profitable state. During the first quarter of fiscal 2015, The Pantry reported net income of $18.9 million, compared to a net loss of $5.1 million in the same quarter a year earlier.

After a 2014 review found inefficiencies in its supply chain and logistics network, Rite Aid Corp. consolidated three distribution centers. Now the company is going in a new direction.

The retailer said it plans to build a 900,000 square foot distribution center in Spartanburg, S.C., its first new DC in 15 years. The new distribution center will employ nearly 600 people after it becomes fully operational and will support the inventory and fulfillment needs of approximately 1,000 Rite Aid stores in the southeastern United States.