News

Ulta Beauty turned in what could be the best retail performance of the first quarter, posting strong brick-and-mortar and online growth and results that easily topped estimates. The company boosted its guidance for the year.    Ulta’s net sales for the quarter, ended May 2, surged 23.7% to $1.07 billion, up from $868.1 million in the year-ago period, and surpassing estimates for $1.03 billion. E-commerce sales shot up 38.8% to $61.0 million from $44.0 million last year.  

The launch of “buy buttons” in the past year on major social networks like Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter received a lot of attention, but so far they are not catching on with customers.
 
According to Digiday, research firms including Forrester and GlobalWebIndex are finding low consumer usage rates for social buy buttons. Reasons include limited functionality and visibility of the buttons.

The nation’s top two extreme-value discounters aren’t feeling the retail malaise that affected department stores and many specialty retailers in the first quarter.  

Guess Inc. swung from profit to net loss in the first quarter of fiscal 2017, missing analyst estimates for both net earnings and revenues.

The apparel retailer reported a net loss of $25.2 million, compared to net earnings of $3.3 million the same quarter a year earlier. Restructuring charges, a negative tax impact, and currency fluctuations helped push the retailer into the red.

From hyperlocal social media intelligence to mobile survey creation, this month’s crop of startups is filling niche spaces that can have a big impact on a retailer’s business. Learn about an augmented reality platform that’s elevating the online experience, a social referral startup that makes it easy to spread rewarding word-of-mouth recommendations and an analytics company that helps retailers and CPG companies get the most out of their online and transaction-level customer data.

SurveyMe

Empire Outlets is New York City’s first and only outlet center so it was only fitting that a contract related to the major project was consummated at the retail real estate industry’s biggest show.
 

Two events converged by 2010 that fundamentally changed how consumers shop and how retailers sell.
 
The first was that the world was enmeshed in a deep recession triggered by the collapse of financial markets in 2008. The second was that the world was going through a refresh cycle for consumer mobile phones. What happened next rocked the retail industry.
 

Canadian specialty frozen food retailer M&M Meat Shops has changed its name to M&M Food Market as part of a total brand reinvention that includes a new store experience.

Complete with new shopping carts, color-coded in-store signage, merchandising displays and a kitchen, the new store concept works to create a more effective, convenient and hands-on shopping experience.

Designed by Shikatani Lacroix, the format is now being rolled out across Canada.