News

In a move that is likely to help it attract new talent — and hold on to existing employees — Ikea U.S. has announced one of the most generous and inclusive parental leave programs in the U.S. retail industry.    Effective Jan. 1, Ikea will provide all its 13,000 U.S. salaried and hourly employees who are expanding their families — including mothers, fathers and adoptive and foster parents — with up to four months of paid parental leave.  

Gordmans Stores named Ramin Mozafari as senior VP of planning and allocation.   Mozafari joins Gordmans from Kohl's Department Stores, where he most recently was senior VP, divisional merchandise manager for accessories. Prior to Kohl's, from 2008 to 2012, he served DSW, where he held various merchandising roles including VP, general merchandise manager.  

Beleaguered Sears has lost two of its top executives.   Jeffrey Balagna, Sears' executive VP, and Joelle Maher, Sears president and chief member officer both left the company within the past week, reported Business Insider.    Sears, which will report its third quarter earnings on Thursday, did not announce or explain the departures,  

Michaels came up short in the third quarter, posting earnings and revenue that missed analysts’ forecasts.   The art and craft retailer reported third-quarter adjusted earnings of 40 cents per diluted share, missing analysts' estimates of 43 cents per share.   Net sales increased 5.0% to $1.227 billion, primarily a result of the acquisition of Lamrite West in February 2016 and sales from 19 additional stores.  

It’s official. Supervalu has finalized the sale of its discount supermarket business, Save-A-Lot, to an affiliate of Onex Corporation for $1.365 billion in cash.   In connection with the closing of the sale, Supervalu and Save-A-Lot have entered into a five-year professional services agreement whereby Supervalu will continue providing certain back office services to Save-A-Lot.  

Clearly, Cyber Week’s promotions helped to produce record-breaking sales — but discounts alone won’t drive success this holiday season.   Let’s face it — even the best deals won’t matter if a retailer doesn’t have those highly-coveted Hatchimals or wireless Dr. Dre Beats in-stock and ready to be shipped in record-time. This battle will be won with a focused staff that is trained and ready to handle an onslaught of incoming orders; respond to customer questions and efficiently fulfill orders.

There is one trend from the past couple of years shows no signs of stopping anytime soon: the movement of online-only retailers to the physical space. If anything, it’s gaining more momentum.      According to JLL’s Screens to Stores report, even more online retailers will experiment with physical locations in the next five years.    

Automated interaction is increasingly preferred by digital shoppers — and demand is increasing.   Specifically, 44% of shoppers said that if a company could get it right, they would prefer to use a chatbot or an automated assistant for customer service interaction — up four points from the 2015 survey. Half of them said that they would rather conduct all brand interaction via text/messaging, with 39% saying the digital-first methods are more effective than talking.  

With many Thanksgiving weekend digital purchases stemming from searches, the convenience of mobility is helping to drive this uptick.   That’s according to the “2016 Search Spend and Purchase Report,” from NetElixir. The study analyzing more than 11 million visits across four different verticals (food and gourmet, consumer electronics, apparel and gifting), starting on Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday.  

Luxury jewelry brand John Hardy evokes its Balinese roots at its new, multi-sensory flagship in Manhattan’s SoHo.