News

A review of strategic alternatives is underway at mall-based specialty retailer Aeropostale following the deterioration of fourth quarter results and a supply chain disruption caused by a supplier dispute.

Sale declined 16.1% to $498 million and same-store sales, including e-commerce, declined 6.7%. Profits declined to $21.7 million, or 27 cents a share, compared to a prior year fourth quarter loss of $13.5 million, 17 cents a share.

Gordmans Stores plans to open a new store next month in its hometown of Omaha in April, the first of five new units the apparel and home décor retailer has planned for the year.

Google is reportedly looking to beef up its professional apps offering by purchasing a well-known provider of hosted online retail services. According to Re/Code, Google is considering purchasing Shopify. The Canadian provider of cloud-based e-commerce tools is a public company valued at $2.25 billion. [Re/Code]

Consumers have spoken, and there is a definite number of retailer emails that crosses the line.

According to a new survey of more than 1,000 U.S. shoppers from customer targeting technology provider First Insight, the average consumer subscribes to 2.3 retailer email lists and receives 13.1 emails a week from these lists.

The combination of an unspecified number of new stores, e-commerce and same store sales growth will enable Guess Inc., to surpass annual sales of $3 billion in three years, according to new CEO Victor Herrero.

Guess ended its most recent fiscal year with total sales of roughly $2.2 billion, but CEO Victor Herrero, who joined the company last July from Inditex, believes the company can add $800 million in worldwide volume in the next three years, despite sales and profit declines last year.

Anthropologie is offering customers what it calls the “ultimate Anthropologie experience” at its expanded store in Portland, Oregon.

The 25,000-plus-sq.ft. space features, among other things, 12 full-scale living, dining and bedroom settings, a home design center complete with stylists. and limited edition capsule collections.

It also features an extensive shoe selection with more than 300 styles, 800-plus bath, body and beauty items and an expanded selection of activewear.

Target Corp. is expanding the management of its technology organization with two new executive hires.

Tom Kadlec will join Target as senior VP of infrastructure and operations. He will be tasked with leading efforts to modernize and enhance Target’s technology foundation. The company also announced the hiring of Joel Crabb as VP of architecture, with responsibility for enterprise architecture, agile practices and Application Program Interfaces (APIs).

More powerful than a smartphone and more portable than a laptop, tablet computers offer retail design and construction professionals some unique opportunities.

In a session at Chain Store Age’s SPECS 2016 conference at Hilton Anatole in Dallas, March 13-15, “Tablets Unlocked,” Bart Waldeck, CMO and senior VP of product strategy for Tango, identified the top five opportunities tablets offer the store development process.