omnichannel and other buzzwords

(Nicholas Eckhart)

JCPenney Closing 7 Stores By Mid-April

History appears to be repeating itself at JCPenney this week. Just days after the retailer announced its same-store sales were up through the holiday season, the company tempered that good news by unveiling plans to close several stores… again.  [More]

Predictions About Bad Weather Hurting Retailers Didn’t Come True At JCPenney

Predictions About Bad Weather Hurting Retailers Didn’t Come True At JCPenney

For most of the season that we would normally call “winter,” retail prognosticators have predicted poor sales at department stores and clothing stores, since people don’t go shopping for winter coats when it’s still warm enough to go outside in a T-shirt. Now the unusually warm weather is over, though: how did retailers fare? In the case of JCPenney, not as badly as anticipated. [More]

(Ben Schumin)

Online Shipping War: Amazon’s Shelf Robots Against Walmart’s Puny Humans

Amazon and other e-commerce companies have vast order fulfillment warehouses filled with shelves full of goods. Traditional big-box retailers don’t have the same kind of operations, but are trying to compete with e-commerce companies in shipping items directly to customers’ homes and to stores for pickup. How can they compete without building fulfillment warehouses of their own? By turning their existing stores and employees into a vast online order fulfillment operation. [More]