All North America articles – Page 34
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NewsFresh & Easy could break even in 2012, says Tesco boss
Tesco could break even in the US as early as this year, according to chief executive Philip Clarke.
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Gap to focus on ecommerce operations
Gap will focus on ecommerce, m-commerce and its international operations to drive growth in 2012. With direct (ecommerce) and international divisions together representing 26% of the fashion retailer’s total net sales, Gap plans to invest in ecommerce and m-commerce and develop a global IT platform to support its international operations.While ...
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Sears plans to divest two fascias
Sears plans to divest its two fascias, Sears Hometown and Sears Outlet, along with a number of hardware outlets. The creation of this new company will allow these two banners to focus on strategies that best meet the needs of smaller stores. The division will also boost Sears’ liquid assets ...
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Barnes & Noble introduces new Nook tablet PC
Bookseller Barnes & Noble has introduced a new version of its Nook tablet PC, priced at $199 to match Amazon’s Kindle Fire. The new Nook Tablet has 8GB of built-in memory against 16GB for the full-priced $249 version, which will continue to be offered. Barnes & Noble said it has ...
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Macy’s to tweak online model
Department store group Macy’s plans to tweak its online model.The Macy’s ‘Store to Door’ pilot, a service enabling shipment to the customer’s home from another store if one shop is out of a product, is to expand from 23 to 290 of the retailer’s 810 stores this year.However, items will ...
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Amazon pulls Kindle ebooks from online offering
Amazon has pulled 5,000 Kindle ebooks from its online offering after a dispute with the Independent Publishers Group. The decision has fuelled concerns over Amazon’s increasing market dominance in the publishing sector and the pricing of ebooks, which until now have been set by publishers.Mark Suchomel, president of the Independent ...
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Target posts net earnings growth
Target has posted net earnings of $2.93bn (£1.85bn) for its full year and $981m (£619.3m) for the fourth quarter. Target chairman, president and chief executive Gregg Steinhafel, said: “Target generated strong financial performance in 2011, overcoming sluggish economic growth, restrained consumer spending and an intensely promotional holiday season. For the ...
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Blockbuster unveils year end results
Blockbuster has unveiled its results for the year to December 31, 2011 confirming it plans to close 500 underperforming rental stores during the first half of 2012. This number accounts for about one-third of the retailer’s US store portfolio.Blockbuster’s new parent company Dish Network reported an 11% increase in net ...
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AnalysisWalmart US recovers with ‘back to basics’ strategy
Walmart’s results showed that although the US business is finally getting back on track, it must not take its eye off the core domestic division.
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Nordstrom posts net profit increase
Department store group Nordstrom posted a 1.7% increase in net profit to $236m (£147m) for its fourth quarter ended January 28. Net sales rose 12.5% to $3.17bin (£1.97bn) and rose 7.1% on a like-for-like basis. Online sales soared 35% during the quarter.Top-performing categories included handbags, designer and cosmetics. For the ...
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Amazon subsidiary to launch Casa.com
Amazon’s Quidsi subsidiary, acquired in 2011, is to launch a new homewares site, Casa.com. The site will offer more than 35,000 products in categories including kitchen, home decor, bedroom and bathroom and complement existing portals, which include Diapers.com, Soap.com, BeautyBar.com, Wag.com and YoYo.com. Quidsi is also expected to introduce a ...
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AnalysisLondon 2012: will retailers benefit?
You don’t need a ticket to gain extra sales from this year’s Olympic Games but, as Mark Faithfull reports, not all retailers stand to benefit from the events taking place in the UK this summer.
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Amazon’s Kindle Fire grabs share of US tablet market
Amazon’s Kindle Fire has overtaken Samsung to grab the second largest share of the US tablet market, according to research firm IHS. It estimated that Amazon had a 14% share of the market during the fourth quarter after releasing Kindle Fire in November. That compared with a 57% share for ...
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SuperValu reveals plans to cut its nationwide workforce
Grocery retailer SuperValu has revealed plans to cut its nationwide workforce by around 800. The majority of the redundancies will be made by the end of the company’s financial year on February 25. The decision is part of a strategy to remove permanent expenses from the business and reduce overall ...
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Amazon signs licensing agreement with Viacom
Amazon has signed a licensing agreement with Viacom that allows Amazon Prime members to stream television shows from a multitude of channels. The deal, which gives customers access to programmes from MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, TV Land, Spike, VH1, BET, CMT and Logo, boosts Amazon’s online library by 15% to ...
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Staples to launch tablet-optimised transactional website
Office specialist Staples is to launch a tablet-optimised transactional website. Shoppers using a tablet device will be automatically routed to the site at T.staples.com. Its user interface has been designed to keep typing to a minimum in order to ensure that as much content is viewable on the screen at ...
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JC Penney unveils transformation strategy
JC Penney has unveiled a transformation strategy under which it will overhaul its pricing, merchandise and presentation.The department store group plans to update its entire store portfolio by 2015. Under the retailer’s new ‘Fair and Square’ pricing initiative tiered pricing consisting of ‘Everyday’ regular prices will be introduced, ‘Month-Long Values’ ...
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Netflix bounces back from difficult year
Netflix bounced back from the difficulties it faced last summer to report strong revenue growth and an increase in subscriptions for its fourth quarter ended December 31, 2011.During the period, the entertainment provider posted a 47% surge in revenue to $876m (£558m), although net income declined 13% to $41m (£26m). ...
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GalleryNew York store design: A year’s a long time in retail
There have been some dramatic changes in Manhattan’s retail landscape over the past 12 months and the visual merchandising bar has been raised yet again. John Ryan reports.
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Home Depot and eBay to extend PayPal trial
Home improvement retailer The Home Depot and eBay will extend their PayPal in-store payment trial service from five stores to 51 in the San Francisco area. Pilot customers can pay for items via their PayPal account at The Home Depot’s point-of-sale systems using either a PIN via their mobile phone ...