News

Uncertainty among the upcoming presidential election is not dampening holiday sales outlooks.   Indeed, retailers need to be ready to present their holiday best as U.S.-based retail performance over the November through December holiday period is expected to see a 3.2% year-over-year (YoY) lift in sales. This jump is driven partly by a 14.9% increase in YoY sales through digital channels, according to new data from RetailNext.  

Brick-and-mortar retailers such as Walmart and Best Buy are not only surviving online, but are thriving due to their sizable physical assets and digital investments.   That’s one of the main findings of a new report by Moody's Investors Service, which says that while Amazon keeps raising the stakes online and has a decade-plus advantage over other retailers in e-commerce, it still faces intense competition from the likes of Walmart and Best Buy, who are raising the bar online for other physical merchants.   

The Talbots announced that Michael Weiss, longtime CEO of Express, has joined the Talbots board of directors, effective Sept. 1, 2012.     Weiss held various leadership roles at Express, most recently serving from 2007 to 2015 as chairman, president and CEO. He joined Limited Brands in 1981 as the merchandise manager for an eight-store experimental division that became Express.     

In case you missed it, a national Higher Ground Moral Day of Action took place Monday at 30 state capitols across the country and in Washington, D.C. An organization of national and local progressive faith leaders called Moral Revival planned the events to deliver their "Higher Ground Moral Declaration." They called on politicians at all levels “to move away from extremist politics and policies that benefit the few and move toward policies and laws that are just and fair and guarantee a better life for the majority of the people.”

Dollar General announced a major hiring initiative to support its continued expansion.   The discounter said that within the next month it intends to hire 10,000 new employees to support planned store openings and fill current vacancies. The chain will hold approximately 600 localized hiring events through September. It is looking to hire both full-time and part-time positions, including store managers, assistant store managers, lead sales associates and store associates.  

Walmart Canada is extending its ban on accepting Visa credit cards.   The discounter said it will stop accepting Visa credit cards at all 16 of its stores in Canada’s Manitoba province starting on Oct. 24.   

Ikea continues to break the mold when it comes to furniture retailing.   In a move that supports its transition from a traditional brick-and-mortar retailer to a multichannel player, Ikea recently opened the doors of its third “click-and-collect” location in England, in the city of Birmingham.   

Smithfield Properties has sold five properties in Chicago to the Acadia Realty Trust for $150 million, reported the deal’s broker, Mid-America Real Estate Corp.   The properties were:   • North Kingsbury Center on the corner of North Avenue and North Kingsbury Street, with tenants including Old Navy, Pier 1 Imports, Blick Art Materials, and Modani Furniture.  

The waning popularity of golf has taken its toll on the nation’s largest specialty golf retailer.

Golfsmith International Holdings Inc. on Wednesday filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, amid increasing debt and citing a strategy that it launched several years back to open bigger, most costly stores at a time when golf was beginning to decline in popularity. (Just last month, Nike last month announced it was leaving the golf hardware business, its worst-performing division. Adidas is selling its golf equipment business. )

Ikea is installing the largest solar rooftop array in the state of Tennessee atop its location in Memphis.

The store’s 250,675-sq.-ft. solar array consists of a 1.46 MW system, built with 4,424 panels that will produce approximately 2,000,000 kWh of electricity annually for the store, the equivalent of reducing 1,406 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2)).

For the development, design and installation of the Memphis customized solar power system, Ikea selected Hannah Solar, an Atlanta-based full service, certified solar integrator.