News

For a pizza retailer like Domino’s Super Bowl Sunday is the equivalent of Black Friday in terms of omnichannel traffic and order volume.

During the 2016 Super Bowl, Domino’s experienced considerably higher than usual order volumes across all channels - social, mobile, Web and in-store payments. Yet Domino’s avoided the embarrassment of any slowdown in order processing (as well as the Noid) in any channel.

Some of the biggest names in e-commerce are part of a new investor index designed to track the performance of the online retail market.

San Diego-based EQM Indexes LLC, created the index (ticker symbol: IBUYXT) to track the combined performance of 40 to 50 global stocks that derive at least 70% of their revenue from online retail and virtual commerce including the online retail, online marketplace and online travel market segments. The companies that make up the index can be seen here.

Fabletics, the athleisure brand co-founded by actress Kate Hudson in 2013, continues to expand in the physical space.   The e-commerce retailer, which opened its first brick-and-mortar outpost in 2015, plans to open 12 stores in 2017, giving it a total of 30 locations throughout the continental United States in just 23 months.       

A first-of-it-kinds promotion involving Dick’s Sporting Goods and highlighting the capabilities of the UbeRUSH delivery service vows to have championship T-shirts in the hands of Carolina Panthers or Denver Broncos fans less than two hours after the Super Bowl ends.

A high single digit decline in retail traffic in November and early December caused retailers to cut orders of HanesBrands products, but not enough to keep the leading apparel suppliers from posting impressive profit growth and its third consecutive year of record sales.

HanesBrand’s fourth quarter sales woes highlight the weather related difficulties experienced by retailers, the negative effect on traffic and the subsequent margin pressure that was created as retailers had to intensify promotional activity to move merchandise.

JCPenney is pursuing a possible sale and partial leaseback of its headquarters building in Plano, Texas, as part of an ongoing effort to reduce debt and manage expenses.

The company announced Friday that a combination of favorable market conditions and a surplus of available square footage within the building make this an attractive real estate opportunity.

Lululemon Athletica will open the first U.S. outpost of the brand’s design incubator “lab” format in downtown Manhattan, in March.

It’s only the second location for the unusual concept. The first, opened in 2009, is in the company’s hometown of Vancouver, British Columbia.

Sports Authority is taking steps towards filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, according to Bloomberg.

The retailer has a debt payment due in 10 days and in talk with its lenders about a reorganization plan under which it would close as many as 200 of its more than 450 stores, the report said.
 
Sports Authority reportedly skipped a $20 million in interest payment in January on a $343 million loan. It has 10 days to make the payment.

The nation’s two leading mattress specialty firms are one.

On Friday, Mattress Firm completed its $780 million acquisition of rival Sleepy’s. The combined company will have annual sales of over $3.6 billion through approximately 3,500 retail locations in 48 states.

It’s the beginning of a new era at long-suffering American Apparel.

On Friday, the company announced it has emerged from Chapter 11 as a private company after successfully implementing its reorganization plan. The announcement comes days after the Delaware bankruptcy court gave its approval to the plan.