News

Old Navy is turning to Yahoo and Tumblr with a new digital campaign directed at Millennials.

The campaign will highlight Old Navy’s newest apparel this spring, and feature tips from the brand’s style ambassadors, Emily Current and Meritt Elliott.

Los Angeles -- Ron Johnson is sweet on teen fave Nasty Gal. The online edgy- fashion retailer recently closed $16 million in funding to support its growth. The round was led by former Apple retail chief and Penney CEO Ron Johnson, who also joined the company’s board.

New York -- U.S. consumers want a more personalized retail experience but are conflicted about disclosing the type of personal information that goes along with it, according to a survey from Accenture. Nearly 60% of consumers want real-time promotions and offers, yet only 20% want retailers to know their current location and only 14% want to share their browsing history.

San Francisco -- Apple on Monday announced that the Apple Watch will be available starting April 24, to customers in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, and Japan. For shoppers who can’t wait that long, the device will be available for preview, try-on and preorder starting April 10.

Cincinnati -- Macy announced the completion of its previously announced acquisition of beauty products and spa services retailer Bluemercury, for $210 million in cash.

San Francisco -- Gap Inc., Petco Animal Supplies, Levi Strauss are the only U.S. retail brands to be recognized by the Ethisphere Institute as a 2015 World’s Most Ethical Company.

The annual designation, which recognizes organizations that foster a culture of ethics and transparency at every level of the organization was given to 132 companies. The only other retail brands on this year’s list are Sweden’s H&M and the United Kingdom’s Marks and Spencer.

Washington, D.C. -- Import cargo volume at the nation’s major retail container ports is expected to rise an unusually high 16.9% this month over the same time last year as West Coast ports begin to dig out from a backlog of cargo that built up during just-concluded contract negotiations with dockworkers, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released today by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.



Atlanta – UPS wants to take on your problems. The company has unveiled a new positioning message, United Problem Solvers, which communicates the company’s capabilities to solve problems for all customers.

By Gregg Aamoth, CEO, POPcodes

The onset of 2015 marked a huge change in shipping costs, and as a result retailers are struggling to find ways to maintain their bottom lines. As of Jan. 1, packages are now being evaluated by their “dimensional weight,” or volume, instead of determining price by weight alone. Experts say that the when combined with other annual rate hikes and surcharges, the resulting average rate increases will be as high as 30% or more.

Jeffersonville, Ind. – Despite a large amount of hype, most consumers interested in wearable technology are not currently planning to but an Apple Watch when it becomes available. According to an anonymous online survey conducted in February 2015 by Accent Marketing, four out of five wearable consumers say they do not plan to buy the Apple watch