Rent the Runway Co-Founder Jennifer Hyman Steps Down as CEO
Rent the Runway co‑founder Jennifer Hyman announced she will step down as CEO, president, and board member after 18 years at the helm. Former Nordstrom chief merchant Teri Bariquit, who joined the RTR board in October 2025, will assume the role of interim CEO and president effective Friday. Hyman said the company is in its strongest financial position, citing recent momentum from an online marketplace, media platform, and B2B services. She will remain as an adviser through January to aid the transition.
Carter’s Interim CEO: ‘We’re in Line for Our Refund’
Carter’s posted an 8% year‑over‑year rise in Q1 net sales to $681 million, while net income slipped 7.7% to $14.3 million. The interim CEO said the company is awaiting a roughly $130 million government refund tied to IEEPA‑related tariffs. Tariff exposure has surged,...
Simon Property Group Drops Effort to Evict Saks Global Stores Behind in Rent
Simon Property Group and Saks Global have settled a long‑running lease dispute that threatened to stall Saks' Chapter 11 exit. The agreement drops Simon's $7 million eviction claim and grants Saks rent breaks and shorter leases at several Simon malls, including keeping...
Adore Me Weighs on Victoria’s Secret Operating Income
Victoria’s Secret & Co. reported FY 2025 operating income of $271 million, down $39 million year‑over‑year, even as net sales rose 5% to roughly $6.6 billion. The decline reflects a $120 million pre‑tax impairment (after‑tax $90 million) on Adore Me assets after a strategic review deemed...
Walmart, Costco Poised to Win Amid Unfavorable Retail Environment
Moody’s keeps a negative outlook for the global retail and apparel sector, citing high prices, cautious consumers and a sluggish U.S. labor market. Adjusted EBIT is projected to be flat or fall 2% in 2026 after a 1.6% decline last...
REI Reports Flat Sales, Narrower Losses as Store Workers Call for a Boycott
REI reported flat net sales of just over $3.5 billion for 2025 while cutting its net loss by 65% to $54.3 million, aided by a $122 million boost in profit‑sharing and employee incentives. The retailer now serves more than 26 million members after adding...
Mattel CEO: ‘Consumers Are Buying Toys’
Mattel reported a 4% year‑over‑year increase in Q1 net sales to $862 million, turning a $40 million loss into a $61 million profit. The company’s operating loss widened to $102.7 million, but CEO Ynon Kreiz highlighted strong consumer demand and double‑digit growth for brands...
Agentic AI, Fraud and the Fight for Customer Loyalty
Agentic AI is reshaping e‑commerce by automating the entire buyer journey, from product discovery to checkout. At the same time, fraud‑as‑a‑service is proliferating synthetic identities, deepfakes, and document forgeries, overwhelming traditional safeguards. Merchants must shift to proactive, data‑driven fraud prevention...
The AI Gap in Retail Operations Is Real. Here’s How to Start Closing It.
Retail executives overwhelmingly acknowledge that manual back‑office tasks are eroding sales and customer experience, with 72% citing operational drag. A ServiceNow‑Informa TechTarget survey reveals integration hurdles (54%) and unclear KPIs (67%) as the chief obstacles to AI adoption. Yet modest,...
The Smarter Alternative to Discounting: What Your Customer Data Can Tell You
Small and mid‑size retailers risk margin erosion by relying on blanket discounting. Modern point‑of‑sale (POS) systems capture detailed transaction data—visit frequency, basket composition, spend patterns—that can identify loyal shoppers and optimal inventory timing. Elavon executives cite examples where data‑driven scheduling...
J. Jill Names Coach Vet as Chief Marketing Officer
J. Jill appointed former Coach North America marketing VP Kimberly Wallengren as chief marketing officer, effective April 27. The retailer posted a fourth‑quarter net sales decline of 3.1% to $138.4 million, with comparable sales down 4.8% but direct‑to‑consumer revenue rising 2.6% to 53.5%...
Carter’s Brings on Build-A-Bear Vet as CEO
Carter’s announced Sharon Price John, former CEO of Build‑A‑Bear Workshop, as its new chief executive officer and president effective June 15, 2026. She succeeds Douglas Palladini, who departed after only a year, with CFO Richard Westenberger serving as interim CEO....
Kohl’s Delves Into AI for Gift Finding, Aiding Associates
Kohl’s introduced a conversational AI Gift Finder for Mother’s Day, built on Google Cloud’s Gemini Enterprise. The tool lets shoppers describe a recipient’s interests, upload photos, receive tailored product suggestions and add items to the cart without leaving the chat....
Wayfair Touts Market Share Gains in Retail’s Toughest Category
Wayfair reported a 7% rise in Q1 net revenue to $2.9 billion, driven largely by U.S. sales, while active customers grew to 21.4 million, up just over 1% year‑on‑year. Despite the sales boost, the retailer’s net loss barely improved, standing at $105 million,...
The Backroom: Redefining Pacsun
Pacsun, ten years post‑bankruptcy, has reshaped its identity by moving beyond its skate‑surf roots toward a culture‑driven, own‑brand strategy. CEO Brieane Olson detailed the pivot in her new book "Co‑Created," emphasizing co‑creation with young consumers. The retailer recently opened its...
EBay Scrambles to Fix Outages
eBay’s marketplace went completely offline for a second consecutive day, beginning Sunday afternoon and persisting into Monday. The company confirmed intermittent technical issues but declined to comment on the root cause or whether a cyber‑attack was involved. In its latest...
Why Academy Sports & Outdoors Is Going Against the Grain with Store Openings
Academy Sports & Outdoors announced a plan to open 125 stores over the next five years, roughly a 40% increase, targeting exurbs and satellite markets rather than major metros. About 40% of the new locations will be in legacy markets,...
Bankruptcy Court, Citing Saks Global’s Merchandising Woes, Approves $500M in Exit Financing
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Alfredo Pérez approved a $500 million exit financing package for Saks Global, clearing a major hurdle in its Chapter 11 restructuring. The funding addresses the retailer’s acute inventory shortage that stemmed from unpaid vendor bills, which had forced many...
Lowe’s to Open 5 New Stores This Year
Lowe’s announced it will open the first of five new stores in 2026, beginning with a 94,000‑square‑foot location in Port St. Lucie, Florida, that adds a 30,000‑square‑foot garden center and about 100 jobs. The store will showcase centralized selling desks, digital...
3 Takeaways From Walmart’s 2026 Annual Report
Walmart’s FY2026 report shows U.S. e‑commerce now adds 4.3% to comparable sales, up from 2.9% a year earlier, while global online revenue surged 24% to $150.4 billion. Total revenue grew 5.1% to $715.9 billion, driven by higher‑margin e‑commerce deliveries and a 212%...
Complete Guide to Building a Revenue-Generating eCommerce CX
Retailers seeking to grow eCommerce revenue must first audit the customer journey, which spans awareness, consideration, purchase, retention, and advocacy. Optimizing each stage—through SEO and emerging GEO tactics, streamlined checkout, personalized upsells, and robust loyalty or gamification programs—directly lifts conversion...
In Commerce Media, the Hardest Part Is Getting to “Ship It”
Commerce media still offers abundant opportunities, but the era of easy, incremental dollars is ending. Retailers like Foot Locker are expanding into new channels such as same‑day delivery with DoorDash, creating fresh monetization prospects. However, the growing complexity of multiple...
Party City Launches Inside 700 Staples Stores
Party City is embedding shop‑in‑shop kiosks inside more than 700 Staples stores and on Staples' website, creating a combined destination for balloons, décor and print services. The rollout begins amid a global helium shortage linked to the Iran war, which...
Men’s Wearhouse Owner Aims to Rejoin the Stock Market
Tailored Brands, the parent of Men’s Wearhouse and other apparel chains, announced it has confidentially filed a draft Form S‑1 with the SEC to re‑enter the public markets. The filing comes five years after the company emerged from a 2020...
Primark to Be Spun Off Into Stand-Alone Company
Associated British Foods (ABF) announced a demerger that will split its fast‑fashion retailer Primark from its food division, now called FoodCo, with both entities slated to list on the London Stock Exchange by the end of 2027. The move follows...
Millennials, Gen Zers Warm up to AI Shopping Tools
A new Quad and Harris Poll survey shows 62% of Gen Z and Millennial shoppers prefer AI‑powered shopping tools, with 60% of Millennials trusting AI advice more than store associates. However, 75% say they would lose trust if AI results were...
Bath & Body Works Pulls Back on Laundry Offering
Bath & Body Works announced it will scale back its laundry line, including dryer sheets launched last September, to concentrate on its core scented‑product categories. CEO Daniel Heaf said the expansion diverted marketing and development resources away from the brand’s...
For Luxury Retailers, Value Is a Vibe
Luxury retailers are shifting the definition of value from price tags to experiential vibes, according to CEOs of Ralph Lauren and Tapestry. Ralph Lauren’s Patrice Louvet highlighted storytelling, premium shopping experiences and even its Ralph’s coffee concept as ways to...
Levi’s CEO on AI, Sticking to Values
Levi Strauss & Co. CEO Michelle Gass announced that the heritage denim maker is leveraging artificial intelligence to accelerate its transformation into a direct‑to‑consumer, head‑to‑toe denim lifestyle brand. AI is being used to overhaul design, sourcing and inventory processes, supporting...
Are Retailers Ready for What the Weight-Loss Boom Requires?
A quarter of U.S. households are now on GLP‑1 weight‑loss drugs, prompting a surge in clothing and shoe purchases as consumers anticipate size changes. More than half have already refreshed their wardrobes, creating a multi‑phase demand that extends beyond a...
Mattress Firm Parent Somnigroup to Buy One of Its Suppliers for $2.5B
Somnigroup International, the parent of Mattress Firm, announced an all‑stock acquisition of longtime supplier Leggett & Platt for roughly $2.5 billion. The deal, approved by both boards, will combine two historic companies into a single entity with 175 manufacturing sites in 36 countries...
Walmart to Close Illinois Fulfillment Center
Walmart will permanently shut its Matteson, Illinois fulfillment center, affecting 111 employees. Operations will be transferred to other NextGen facilities in the retailer’s evolving fulfillment network. Affected workers can receive a $7,500 incentive and relocation benefits if they move to...
Andy Jassy Defends Amazon’s $200B AI Investment in Letter to Shareholders
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy used his 2025 shareholder letter to defend a $200 billion AI capital‑expenditure plan for 2026, emphasizing that the spend is tied to concrete AWS growth opportunities. He highlighted a $4 billion commitment to expand rural delivery networks, positioning...
How Abercrombie & Fitch Uses Geofencing for Customer Feedback
Abercrombie & Fitch is leveraging geofencing through its mobile app to capture feedback from shoppers who leave stores without purchasing. By detecting entry and exit from a store’s virtual perimeter, the retailer sends a push survey about an hour after...
Bed Bath & Beyond to Acquire Cabinets To Go, Lumber Liquidators Owner
Bed Bath & Beyond announced a $150 million deal to acquire most assets of F9 Brands, the owner of Cabinets To Go and Lumber Liquidators. The transaction includes $37 million in cash and roughly 16 million shares at $7 per share, with an additional $40 million financing roll‑over. Jason Delves, current...
Mattel Chief Commercial Officer to Exit
Mattel announced that President and Chief Commercial Officer Steve Totzke will resign effective May 1, remaining as an executive adviser through December 31 to facilitate transition. Sanjay Luthra, currently managing director of EMEA and global direct‑to‑consumer, is promoted to take over Totzke’s...
Foot Locker Partners with DoorDash for On-Demand Delivery
Foot Locker has teamed up with DoorDash to offer its shoes, apparel and accessories through the DoorDash Marketplace, including products from Kids Foot Locker and Champs Sports. The partnership taps into DoorDash’s active U.S. user base, where more than 30%...
Walmart Launches La Roche-Posay in Stores
Walmart is rolling out the French dermatology brand La Roche‑Posay to 1,460 U.S. stores, positioning pharmacists as trained skin‑care advisers. The partnership adds moisturizers, sunscreens, acne treatments and serums to Walmart’s expanding beauty aisle. By leveraging its pharmacy network, Walmart...
Amazon, USPS Reach Scaled-Back Delivery Deal
The United States Postal Service and Amazon have finalized a scaled‑back delivery agreement that trims Amazon’s parcel volume to the carrier by roughly 20 percent. The compromise follows weeks of tense negotiations after a Wall Street Journal report suggested a...
Olaplex to Be Acquired by Germany’s Henkel for $1.4B
Olaplex Holdings agreed to be acquired by Germany‑based Henkel for $2.06 per share, valuing the hair‑care brand at roughly $1.4 billion. The transaction, approved by Olaplex’s board and majority owner Advent International, is slated to close in the second half of...
Kohl’s Spotlights Tek Gear Private Label at a Tough Time for Activewear
Kohl’s has enlisted U.S. women’s soccer star Carli Lloyd to front a spring‑summer campaign for its Tek Gear activewear label. The brand, highlighted as one of Kohl’s best‑performing private labels last year, is being promoted alongside the comedic “Kohl’s Mom” character to...
Staples Appoints Chief Growth Officer
Staples elevated long‑time executive Chris Powers to chief growth officer, signaling a renewed focus on sustainable expansion. Powers, who has spent roughly 18 years at the retailer across revenue management, pricing and investor relations, will steer growth strategy from the...
Dollar Shave Club Swipes at Competition in First Women’s Grooming Push
Dollar Shave Club announced a new women’s razor and grooming line, entering a market valued at roughly $1.8 billion. The launch is backed by a dual‑track ad campaign: a traditional filmed spot and an AI‑generated video that lampoons pastel‑laden competitors. CEO...
Inside Walmart’s Creator-Driven Social Commerce Playbook
Walmart is building a creator‑driven social commerce engine that blends shoppable ads, influencer networks, and AI‑powered trend tools. The retailer treats social platforms as search venues, targeting Gen Z and millennial users who spend hours daily online. Its Walmart Creator program,...
Andie Debuts Target Swimwear Collection
Andie, the direct‑to‑consumer swimwear label, launched a limited‑edition collection with Target featuring 49 exclusive styles in sizes XS to 3X. Priced between $32 and $50, the line undercuts Andie's typical $100‑plus DTC prices. Available both online and in Target’s 2,000...
Bed Bath & Beyond CFO Jumps to Sally Beauty
Adrianne Lee, former president and CFO of Bed Bath & Beyond, will become Sally Beauty’s chief financial officer on April 28, succeeding Marlo Cormier. Lee brings a track record that includes finance leadership at Hertz and Best Buy, and Sally Beauty’s CEO highlighted her strategic...
Retailers Rely on This Tariff Mitigation Tactic. Congress Has Noticed.
Retailers are increasingly using the decades‑old First Sale customs rule to lower tariff liabilities, with Target citing the method in its FY2025 filing and reporting sizable refunds. The rule lets importers declare the price paid in the earliest transaction of...
From Carrier-Centric to Customer-Centric: How SmartKargo Is Helping eCommerce Leaders Rethink Parcel Delivery
Parcel delivery has shifted from a back‑end cost center to a key customer‑experience driver for e‑commerce. Rising fuel surcharges, accessorial fees and tariff uncertainty make shipping costs unpredictable and erode trust. Airline‑powered networks such as Delta Cargo’s DeliverDirect and IAG...
As AI Compresses the Shopping Journey, Retail Media Faces a New Pressure Point
Retail media, once built on shopper exploration across search and browse, is being upended by AI‑driven discovery tools that summarize options and push consumers closer to checkout. As upstream interactions shrink, the checkout phase—dubbed the Transaction Moment—now captures the bulk...
What’s Next for Retail: Technology, Transparency and Total Opportunity
Retail’s digital transformation is moving from basic digitization to integrated, cloud‑native ecosystems that unify legacy systems and data streams. Retailers are deploying AI, machine‑learning and IoT sensors to create real‑time, end‑to‑end visibility of inventory, foot traffic and loss prevention. Early...