Last week, Target announced its quarterly earnings. The results surprised many – and with Target being a retail bellwether, it had some wide-ranging implications and effects. While revenue grew 4% year-over-year, Target’s operating income declined 43%. Target’s CEO, Brian Cornell, cited a confluence of factors – accelerated shifts in spending, rising costs of labor, transportation, […]

In the last few weeks, we’ve heard from several consumer products companies that after a strong start to 2022, retailers are delaying and cancelling orders scheduled for delivery in the second and third quarters of this year.  It’s hardly surprising that consumers may be beginning to balk and that retailers are getting more conservative, as […]

Nike (including the Jordan brand) and Adidas have dominated the U.S. athletic footwear market for many years; according to NPD, the two brands control 51% and 11%, respectively, of the domestic athletic shoe market. However, recent developments suggest that change is underway.  According to a recent report from Footwear News, Nike/Jordan and Adidas athletic footwear […]

Last week, the New York Post reported that J.C. Penney owners and largest U.S. mall operators Simon Property Group (“Simon”) and Brookfield Asset Management (“Brookfield”) have submitted an offer to acquire Kohl’s for more than $8.6 billion, or $68 per share. Kohl’s has been under pressure from activist investors to sell, and in a March […]

In early April, workers at an Amazon.com warehouse on Staten Island voted to form the e-commerce giant’s first U.S. union, building on successful organizing efforts at Starbucks and leading to speculation that a new American union movement is underway. At Starbucks, more than 180 of the company’s 9,000 corporate stores have petitioned for union elections […]