News

Foot Locker has "hit the ground running in 2015," according to CEO Richard Johnson, adding that the company posted a better-than-expected 14% increase in profit in its first quarter as the sportswear retailer continues to benefit from sales growth.

Tampa, Fla. -- Ashley Furniture Industries announced that it is establishing, through its wholly owned subsidiary, Ashcomm LLC, its U.S. e-commerce headquarters in Ybor City.

The headquarters office will occupy 70,000 sq. ft. of space in Centro Ybor in the heart of Tampa’s historic business and entertainment district. It will eventually house more than 100 employees in executive, administrative, marketing, design, and information technology positions for both the e-commerce business as well as other Ashley corporate operations.
 

New York -- Merchandise misfires are the bane of specialty apparel retailers. Most recently, Anthropologie, a division of Urban Outfitters, missed big time with its spring collection of cocktail dresses and maxis, which customers apparently found too pricey and/or not to their liking.

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Columbus, Ohio -- L Brands Inc. continued its winning ways in its first quarter, reporting better-than-expected earnings. The parent company of Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works also lifted its earnings forecast for the full year, but issued a weak forecast for the current quarter.

L Brands’ net income increased 59% to $250.47 million from $156.98 million in the year-ago period.

Net sales grew 5% to $2.51 billion from $2.39 billion last year.

Same-store sales rose 5%.

Kearney, Neb. – The Buckle Inc. fell short of Wall Street expectations for profit in a generally disappointing first quarter of fiscal 2015.

Net income fell 10% to $33.6 million from $37.3 million, with higher cost of sales and selling, general and administrative (SG&A) expenses cutting into profitability.

Net sales slightly declined to $271.34 million from $271.67 million.

Same-store sales dropped 2.2%. In one bright spot, online sales increased 12.9%.
 

Seattle - Auburn University's new RFID Lab held its grand opening May 21, during which Amazon.com announced a joint project with the university to explore the business case for the implementation of RFID within the Amazon supply chain. Amazon has utilized RFID technology in its fulfillment centers, where customer orders are picked from shelves, moved on conveyers and loaded onto trucks for rapid shipping and delivery.

Mississauga, Canada – Ikea plans to open a 397,000-sq.-ft. distribution center in Mississauga Ontario in October. The new facility will fulfil customer orders from the four existing Toronto-area stores and e-commerce purchases, as well as support growth plans for Ikea Canada to meet customers in new and existing markets.

The location will bring Ikea closer to the customer, which the retailer hopes will allow for an improved logistical setup enabling an increased range offer and shorter lead-times while contributing to sustainability goals.

San Francisco - Customers who choose live chat for customer service are satisfied a higher percentage of the time than those who call, email, or use social media channels. According to findings of the quarterly Zendesk Benchmark report, customers using live chat for customer service are satisfied 92% of the time.

The average benchmark for live chat across all geographies and industries is 62 chat conversations a month; first response time of one minute 36 seconds on average; and customer satisfaction of 92%.

Atlanta – Manhattan Associates Inc. is entering a strategic alliance with Verifone that will offer retailers flexible and secure point of sale (POS) solutions as well as streamlined EMV migration. As part of the alliance, Verifone Point, which is built on Verifone’s Secure Commerce Architecture (SCA) will support Manhattan Associates’ POS solution.