For years, it was the front line of the holiday retail battle.  Black Friday was treated like the be-all, end-all by many retailers, and attracting foot traffic on that day was critical.  Accordingly, beginning decades ago, it became typical for retailers to offer special Black Friday deals to draw consumers into their stores, often at […]

Just two weeks into Kohl’s rollout of an initial 200 Sephora in-store shops, Kohl’s CEO Michelle Gass said the partnership is showing the potential to offer benefits in a myriad of ways. According to Ms. Gass, the Sephora shops in Kohl’s are driving “extraordinary growth” in Kohl’s beauty business and boosting average unit retails (AURs) […]

On Thursday, Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette announced that the company hired consulting firm AlixPartners to explore separating its ecommerce and brick-and-mortar stores businesses. While Macy’s has not reached any conclusions about whether to proceed with a separation, activist investor Jana Partners announced last month that it had taken a stake in Macy’s and called for […]

On November 5, Congress passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which President Biden will sign when Congress returns to session this week.   If the associated revenue changes are approved through the budget reconciliation process, the U.S. will commence what The Brookings Institute calls “a building spree larger than what happened during the New Deal.” […]

The Chinese shopping festival of Singles’ Day, also known as 11.11, is set to conclude this week, and indications are that this year it will again be the biggest shopping event on the planet. Originally created in the 1990’s to celebrate single people, the holiday took a commercial turn in 2009, when Chinese ecommerce retailer […]