News

New York –- Organizational efficiency costs and charges related to store closures and upgrades that are part of an ongoing transformation plan negatively impacted net income reported by Coach Inc. during the third quarter of fiscal 2014. Net income totaled $146 million, down 33% from $218 million in the same quarter the previous fiscal year.  

New York -- As the holiday season approaches, shoppers are apprehensive about the rise in credit card breaches at major retailers and adjusting their shopping behavior accordingly. According to a new survey from TheStreet conducted by GfK, two-thirds of them are concerned that their credit card and personal information will be stolen whether they shop online or in stores.  

Cleveland, Ohio –- The Sherwin-Williams Company had a strong third quarter of fiscal 2014, with net income growing 24% to $326.24 million from $262.97 million in the same period a year earlier. Net sales climbed 10% to $3.15 billion from $2.85 billion.  

St. Louis -- Build-A-Bear Workshop is opening a new store location in the Brill Building in Times Square in New York City on Tuesday, Oct. 28. This seasonal pop-up shop offers an assortment of proprietary products, licensed properties and New York City-themed merchandise.   

Austin, Texas -- The platform behind today’s most inspiring shopping experiences today announced the results of a recent study based on an audit of 220 websites across 10 retail segments to identify benchmarks for how online shoppers are able to navigate in the digital realm. The study compared those results to existing attribute categories of current Edgecase retailers in the same categories to show the current disconnects in navigation standards.   

Englewood Cliffs, N.J. -- LG Electronics USA has selected Ugam's Brand Intelligence solution to help manage its brand reputation and channel relationships in the U.S. consumer electronics industry. Ugam's technology and services will support LG's commitment to deliver a superior customer experience by enforcing compliance with its pricing policy.  

Armonk, N.Y. –- IBM has released new high-speed analysis and criminal investigation software that is designed to uncover hidden criminal threats buried inside massive volumes of disparate corporate data. IBM i2 Enterprise Insight Analysis (EIA) can find non-obvious relationships within hundreds of terabytes of data and trillions of objects in just seconds.   

Plug and Play brings together retailers and start-ups who offer specific technology and expertise that can relieve merchants’ pain points. Customer Disruption highlights one of those start-ups in each issue with a brief Q&A. This issue, the spotlight is on Polina Marchenko, CEO of KptnCook.   What does KptnCook do?  

Minneapolis –- An increase in selling, general & administrative (SG&A) expenses helped reduce net income at Tile Shop Holdings Inc. to $1.5 million, down 63% from $4.05 million in the same quarter the prior fiscal year. In addition, founder and CEO Robert Rucker will retire as CEO effective Jan. 1, 2015 and be replaced by current COO Chris Homeister, who will join the board of directors early in 2015.  

Menomonee Falls, Wis. - Kohl’s Corp. expects same-store sales to decrease 1.4% in the third quarter of fiscal 2014. The company said October sales have been softer than the balance of the quarter.    Geographically, Kohl’s expects sales to be consistent across all regions. E-commerce sales are expected to increase more than 30%. By line of business, the company expects children’s to report same-store sales increases for the quarter.