Hudson’s Bay, the parent company of Lord & Taylor and Saks Fifth Avenue, is in talks to acquire fashion flash sale site Gilt for $250 million, according to The Wall Street Journal. This is significantly less than the $1.1 billion valuation Gilt received in 2011. In addition to its flash site, Gilt also has a […]

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Dallas–Luxury retailer Neiman Marcus Group swung to a first-quarter loss and posted lower sales. Revenue fell 1.8% to $1.16 billion in the three months ended Oct. 31. Revenue excluding stores newly opened or closed dropped 5.6%. Neiman Marcus’s loss of $10.5 million for the first quarter hits particularly hard, especially when compared with a year-earlier […]

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New York–Fashion darling Tory Burch has recently laid off 100 people (about 3% of the workforce) at its Flatiron District headquarters and some of its 160 stores. Craig Johnson, president of Customer Growth Partners, told the New York Post this about the fashion and accessories label: “We started to see some weakness in sales momentum […]

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Los Angeles–No trip to LA was complete without a visit to fashion/gift boutique Kitson, where shoppers could find snarky novelty items, designer duds…and spot lots and lots of celebrities. In fact, if you didn’t know where Kitson was, all you had to do was look for the paparazzi outside the Robertson Boulevard location, opened in […]

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Toronto and New York—While its recent European acquisitions helped with a 34% sales increase, Hudson’s Bay Company today reported an adjusted loss that missed analysts’ estimates. For the three months ended Oct. 31, the parent of Lord & Taylor and Saks posted a net profit was C$1 million, or 1 Canadian cent, compared with a […]

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Cincinnati—Why wait until December 26? Throw the doors open on Christmas for returns and sales appears to be the message to retailers, particularly from Millennials. When LoyaltyOne Consulting, a firm specializing in assessing, designing and implementing analytics-driven loyalty and customer experience strategies, asked 1,267 American consumers nationwide in November what they would do if retailers […]

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Washington–As of this week, merchants and consumers in Europe will see some relief from the exorbitant fees paid to the credit card companies and banks to process debit and credit card transactions, which will help retailing prosper and save consumers a lot of money, according to the Merchants Payments Coalition. The 28 countries of the […]

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Madrid—Inditex, owner of Zara, said today that its profit for the first nine months of the year soared 20%, helped by a 16% increase in sales. In the nine months ending October 31, net profit rose by a fifth to 2.02 billion euros ($2.2 billion) on sales up 16% to 14.7 billion euros. In constant […]

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Washington–The National Retail Federation today called on Congress to reject a customs reauthorization bill set for a vote this week unless it includes a provision allowing states to require online merchants to collect sales tax the same as local stores. “As more and more Main Street retailers close their doors because they cannot compete, it […]

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Fort Wayne, IN—Vera Bradley Inc. today reported a 48% jump in its third quarter earnings due to better-than-expected sales stronger margins and fewer markdowns. For the three months ended Oct. 31, the handbag and accessories maker posted a profit of $10.3 million, or 27 cents a share, up from $6.9 million, or 17 cents a […]

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