News

Higher demand for running and basketball shoes is translating into more record sales and profits for Foot Locker, which reported impressive third quarter results on Friday.

The New York-based specialty athletic retailer posted a same store sales increase of 8.7% in its third quarter ended Oct. 31.

The North Face puts its passion for adventure and the great outdoors front and center in its new flagship on Regent Street in London. Designed to inspire customers to explore the world, the 4,300-sq.-ft. store has a sleek, modern look.

Destination XL says it is on pace to open its 175th store next year as the big and tall retailer also posted a jump in same-store sales and filled a newly created position with a veteran from Genesco.

For the third quarter ended Oct. 31, same store sales at the company increased 4.3%. Destination XL also narrowed its loss to $5.47 million, or 11 cents a share. In the previous year period, the company reported a loss of $6.28 million, or 13 cents a share.

A familiar name factors heavily into the online holiday shopping plans of consumers.

According to a new poll from Reuters and Ipsos, 51% of consumers plan to do most or all of their online holiday shopping at Amazon.com. This dwarfs the next-most-popular specific retailer, Walmart, favored by 16%.

Other traditional and online retailers combined for the second-highest response of 18%. Other popular retailers with low responses include Target (3%) and Macys (2%).

Gordmans Stores ended its same-store sales dry spell and successfully launched an e-commerce site in the third quarter, leaving CEO Andy Hall upbeat about the company’s prospects.

Gordmans, operator of 102 off price department stores, said same-store sales increased 0.8% and total sales increased 4.9% to $153.9 million in the third quarter ended Oct. 31. The company also noted that gross margin improved 50 basis points to 44.4% due to reduced markdown activity.

Oak Brook, Illinois-based Ace Hardware Corporation reported third quarter 2015 revenues of $1.3 billion, an increase of $148.5 million or 13.2% from third quarter 2014. Net income was $54.2 million for third quarter 2015, an increase of $16.9 million or 45.3% from last year.

"We are delighted to announce the best third quarter sales and profit in Ace’s history," said John Venhuizen, President and CEO, Ace Hardware Corp. "The credit falls squarely on the shoulders of our world-class retailers, associates and corporate teammates.”

Walmart on Friday named George Riedl as senior VP, president Walmart health and wellness, reporting to Michelle Gloeckler, Walmart executive VP consumables and health and wellness.

Just in time for the holidays, Google is revamping its Google Shopping online marketplace to make it more mobile-friendly.

In a blog post, Google explains that mobile shopping-related searches now exceed desktop-based shopping-related searches, meaning online shopping has shifted from a “marathon” to “moments.” To help better capture mobile consumers at the moment they are looking to buy a product, Google is now displaying the most commonly searched categories in response to broad search terms.