News

San Francisco -- Guess Inc. saw fourth-quarter profits slide 4% on softer sales in the three-month period.

Net income fell to $69.6 million from $72.5 million, and revenue for the quarter ended Feb. 1 dipped to $768.4 million from $815.1 million. Revenue results still beat Wall Street expectations of $758 million.

A study of 10,000 U.S. consumers’ attitudes about retail customer service saw Sam’s Club best Amazon.com and dozens of other retailers among a field of 268 companies.

General Mills’ third-quarter sales and operating profit reflected lower volumes. The company said weak food industry trends during the period as a result of a severe winter affected its results, as did increased consumer marketing and merchandising investment in its U.S. yogurt business.

Net sales for the quarter ended Feb. 23 totaled $4.38 billion, down 1% from year-ago levels. Third-quarter net earnings totaled $411 million and diluted earnings per share totaled 64 cents per share.  

Pacific Sunwear overcame weak mall traffic and bad weather to log its eighth consecutive quarter of same-store sales growth with a 2% comp increase in the fourth quarter.

The teen and young adult retailer said sales from continuing operations during the quarter ended Feb. 1 totaled $218.6 million compared to sales of $222.8 million during the fourth quarter the prior year, a period which included the benefit of an additional week which added sales of $9 million. PacSun ended its most recent fiscal year with 618 stores compared to 644 in the year earlier period.

Waban, Mass. -- Sam's Club and Amazon.com deliver the best customer experience in the retail industry, according to the 2014 Temkin Experience Ratings, an annual ranking of companies based on a study of 10,000 U.S. consumers. Sam's Club and Amazon.com continue their reign as the highest-rated retailers for the third straight year, each earning an "excellent" rating.

Ikea wants to expand the warehouse of its Detroit-area store in Canton, Mich. As a result, Ikea Canton, which opened June 2006 at 311,000 sq. ft., would grow to approximately 355,000 sq. ft. Initial utility work would begin this summer with actual construction starting in autumn. The store would remain open and operational during construction, maintaining its full product offering throughout the project’s completion in spring 2015.

San Diego – Nine-in-10 (91%) women conduct online research prior to making a purchase, and 92% are willing to pay more for competing products that receive positive online reviews. A new consumer survey from Interactions, “Retail Perceptions - The Power of Persuasion,” also found that 30% of women use a mobile device to conduct research and 37% of mobile users say they conduct research during their shopping trip.

By Dave Richards, Accenture

We shop almost every day – picking something up at the drug store or buying lunch, clothes shopping or getting groceries, looking for a gift or checking out a promotion – and we are doing this on the way to work, at work, at night while watching TV, online, at a store and increasingly across mobile devices. There is one thing that unites consumers in all of these instances: we expect the experience to be unified, personalized, constant, connected and, above all, seamless.