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Macy's is restructuring its upper management teams to "increase the speed of decision making, reduce costs and respond to changing customer expectations." The company said that it will move key leaders into expanded roles. The company will also cut roughly 100 vice president and above jobs effective 1 March 2019. The department store expects the move to generate savings of $100 million beginning this year. The cuts will allow Macy's to redirect those resources toward supply chain efficiency, enhancing inventory management and building a larger customer base.

The company reported its fifth consecutive quarter of positive comp sales; Comps rose 0.4% for the quarter on an owned basis and 0.7% on an owned-plus-licensed basis.

Marks & Spencer is set to introduce plastic-free aisles after testing a new greengrocer shopping concept in its Tolworth store.

The retailer is launching more than 90 lines of loose fruit and vegetables free of all plastic packaging in a trial which will involve trained greengrocers on hand to help customers. Greengrocers will offer customers help to pick and weigh their products and advise on how best to preserve fresh produce and prevent food waste at home as M&S has removed "best before" date labels as part of the trial. The range includes hard fruit and vegetables like potatoes and bananas but also more perishable items such as soft fruits and berries, which will be sold in compostable punnets.

M&S said it has also committed to launching additional lines of loose produce, replacing plastic produce bags with paper ones and phasing out plastic barcode stickers in favour of eco-friendly alternatives in every one of its UK stores in an effort to save 580 tonnes of waste over two years. If it is successful it will be rolled out more widely across the UK.

press release: M&S trialling plastic-free aisles in push to save the environment

Bloomingdale's has put the finishing touches to its reimagined beauty floor at its 59th Street flagship in New York City. New features include a luxe fragrance hall, a vast array of beauty services and spa rooms, personalised beauty shopping service, a multitude of new brands and technology innovations.  'The beauty department is the first stop on every customer's journey upon entering the store, and in renovating the space we had to ensure that it would capture and engage our shoppers. The revamped department has all the sought-after brands, a spectacular luxury fragrance hall and enhanced service offerings. In addition, through state-of-the-art installations we have created an environment like no other beauty floor in the world' said Francine Klein, vice chairman and GMM for shoes, handbags, fashion accessories, fashion and fine jewellery, cosmetics and outlets.

The department spans 3,382 sq m of the flagship's main floor, with an additional 102 sq m of beauty outposts located across multiple floors of the store. It houses more than 200 beauty brands including 75 new and noteworthy names. The new floor boasts state-of-the-art counters, interactive spaces and tech enhancements to elevate the shopper's experience in a fun, dynamic atmosphere. The revamped floor features modern product displays in open sell environments and multiple play stations to encourage shoppers to touch, feel and try out products. The space is also home to a multitude of shop-in-shops, where brand partners created environments reflective of their brand image.

The reimagined cosmetics floor is the next phase of the flagship store's complete transformation, following renovations that created a home store, destination shoe emporium, ready-to-wear experience and now a playground for beauty and fragrances.

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Selfridges said it delivered a "record-breaking Christmas" with sales on the up throughout the holiday period. The British department store said it saw an 8 percent sales increase across all of its channels during the week of Christmas and in the 24 day run-up to the holidays. Selfridges' Oxford Street flagship saw a 10 percent uplift in sales during the 24 days before the holidays. On Boxing Day, despite declining footfalls in stores across the U.K., the retailer said that it took in more than 4 million pounds in the first hours of the annual sale.

Exclusive product and in-store entertainment — which ranged from a sold-out Christmas cabaret to pop-up choirs and Santa appearances — drove consumers to the stores throughout the festive period, the store said. "Our 'Selfridges Rocks Christmas' theme and entertainment really resonated with our customers, both across our stores and online," said Anne Pitcher, Selfridges' managing director.

Last year, the retailer was in the process of completing an ambitious renovation project of its Oxford Street flagship, which has been a key contributor to the increased footfall. As part of the project, Selfridges unveiled the largest accessories department in the world, a new men's wear section that brings together street and designer wear, as well as a new in-store restaurant, created in partnership with Richard Caring of Caprice Holdings and featuring one-off works by Damien Hirst. It has also doubled the size of the beauty hall in its Manchester store and opened new Gucci and Jimmy Choo boutiques in its Birmingham location.

Israel's largest department store chain Hamashbir Lazarchan Ltd, controlled by Rami Shavit, has been hit by the growth of online retail. It is closing its 1,500 sqm branch in Tel Aviv's Gan Ha'Ir, where it has been operating for the past eight years. Hamashbir is also reducing its branch in the Kiryon mall in Kiryat Bialik in Haifa Bay from 6,400 sqm to 3,000 sqm. Hamashbir will also close its branch in the Lev Ashdod mall and open a smaller 1,800 sqm branch in Ashdod's Sea Mall.

At the same time, however, Hamashbir will open a new 2,300 sqm branch in March in a new mall in Atarot in northern Jerusalem. Some of the space vacated by Hamashbir in Tel Aviv's Lev Ha'Ir will be taken by Shufersal Ltd's pharmacy chain Be, while fashion chain Zara will move into Hamashbir's vacated space in Kiryat Bialik.

Saks Fifth Avenue has brought the team behind Parisian celebrity hot spot L'Avenue to open a new luxe restaurant at its 5th Avenue store in NYC. It also brought high-profile designer Philippe Starck for the decor. The French-Thai restaurant, a celebrity magnet in Paris, will open in early February on the ninth floor and will be spread across two floors that look out at St. Patrick's Cathedral and 30 Rock. The dining room is done up in beige and ivory with stained-glass windows offering glimpses into the kitchen. One floor down, a bar area is full of ski chalet-type furniture meant for people to linger and work or take meetings alongside cocktails.

L'Avenue joins an influx of retail restaurants that have opened in that last couple of years, as retailers look outside the box to attract shoppers. There's a separate entrance to the restaurant on 50th Street, though Saks hopes diners will go through the store.

John Lewis and Waitrose have both posted positive sales during what was the worst Christmas for retailers since the financial crash in 2008 but the retailer's owner, the John Lewis Partnership, has warned on profits as "weak consumer demand" increases pressure on the high street.

read full article on John lewis/waitrose christmas sales

Shares in Debenhams <DEB.L>, the British department store chain that is fighting for survival, plunged as much as 22 percent on 11 January as its new interim chairman began the task of trying to find a consensus among investors on the way forward. On 10 January, two major Debenhams shareholders - Mike Ashley's Sports Direct <SPD.L> and Middle Eastern investor Landmark Group - forced Chief Executive Sergio Bucher off the board and Chairman Ian Cheshire out of the company following a drop in Christmas sales. Terry Duddy, Debenhams' senior independent director, was appointed interim chairman, and said he would meet with shareholders to understand their concerns.

Sports Direct is Debenhams' biggest investor with a 29.7 percent stake but its plan for the department store chain is unclear. In September, Sports Direct ruled out a takeover bid, shortly after an outgoing director said the board had discussed combining Debenhams with the House of Fraser chain that Sports Direct bought out of administration in August for 90 million pounds. Debenhams has a programme to close 50 of its underperforming UK stores over three to five years. However, Ashley wants Debenhams to move faster. He told Sky News last month he believed Debenhams should carry out a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) restructuring to close stores. CVAs require the approval of landlords and creditors. Also in December, Debenhams declined the offer of a 40 million pound interest-free loan from Ashley, saying conditions attached to it could affect the interests of other stakeholders.

Debenhams has net debt of 286 million pounds and debt facilities of 520 million pounds. Its equity market value as of 10 January's close was just 59.3 million pounds. A key focus for Duddy will be refinancing Debenhams' existing banking facilities. The firm needs to pass a banking covenant test next month. "We believe all options are being considered - maybe different types of lenders and/or an equity rights issue," said analysts at Jefferies. The highly unusual situation of Bucher remaining as CEO but not being on the company board will also be problematic for Debenhams. "It is not tenable for the CEO not to be on the board. The danger now is that Mike (Ashley) is allowed, in all the confusion, to buy the company on the cheap," said independent retail analyst Nick Bubb.

Following the announcement that Saks Fifth Avenue is shutting its women's store at Brookfield Place downtown in New York on 5 January, two other major flagships are closing this month: Lord & Taylor and Gap.

Lord & Taylor has shut down its historic flagship on 2 January. WeWork should take possession of the 650,000-square-foot, 11-story property sometime in January and convert it to its global headquarters and shared offices, along with transforming the lower, main and second floors for new retailing.

Gap will close its three-level flagship at 680 Fifth Avenue on 20 January, after being on the site since 1997. The move is part of the specialty chain's massive streamlining that involves hundreds of stores worldwide that don't fit the "vision for the future of the Gap brand specialty store […]" as Gap Inc. chief executive officer Art Peck said.

The merged company made up of the two German department stores Kaufhof and Karstadt will be led by Karstadt chief Stephan Fanderl. Kaufhof boss Roland Neuwald will leave at the end of January after only 14 months heading his company. The ex-Metro Kaufhof CEO had launched cost-cutting measures as well as initiatives to increase sales. He will be replaced at the head of the joint structure by Fanderl, who comes originally from Signa, owner of Karstadt and 50.01% owner of the joint structure. The rest is owned by HBC which acquired Kaufhof in 2015.

The group operates 243 stores in Germany, Belgium and Netherlands, including Galeria Inno, Saks Off and Hudson's Bay. According to reports in the German press, only the financial director of Kaufhof will continue in the new structure.

Casino Group has launched 'Le 4 Casino', its first cashier-free location on Paris' Champs-Elysées, with its long-standing partner Prodistribution.

The new store has three floors and offers 6,000 products. It's open 24 hours, seven days a week, and it boasts a selection of organic products, a "smart wine and spirits cellar," and sample dishes prepared by a chef. There is also a showroom for products from French ecommerce site Cdiscount and a free coworking space. In addition to grabbing products onsite, shoppers have the option of ordering home delivery through a digital wall, where they can scan items and schedule delivery. It also features an augmented reality experience, visible from the street, to enhance the customer experience in-store. Visitors to the store are able to conduct their shopping without visiting a cash register as image recognition allows them to make purchases by using the Casino App on their phone and scanning the app at a self-service checkout. However there are still a few automatic cash-desk.

The innovations delivered by "Le 4 Casino" are the collaborative achievement of around fifteen different partners from the retail industry. Technology is harnessed to enhance the customer experience by offering creative new services such as in-store product mapping and shopping route management, and innovative solutions to provide fully personalised shopper assistance and a fast, easy checkout. These state-of-the-art services and technologies are a sign of things to come in the Group's other stores.

The company says Le Casino 4 is an experiment, and it plans to give the store at least six months before evaluating its reception (the concept is located at 4, avenue Franklin Roosevelt in Paris and opened in October 2018).

Press release and pictures below

press release on le casino 4 opening

Blake Nordstrom, who headed a trio of brothers that ran the luxury apparel store chain that their Swedish-American family founded has died at 58. He died in Seattle on 2 January, the company said in a statement, less than a month after disclosing he was undergoing chemotherapy for a treatable form of lymphoma.

Nordstrom was sole president of Seattle-based Nordstrom Inc. for 15 years, beginning in 2000. In 2015, the company named his brothers, Peter and Erik, as co-presidents in charge of the chain's brick-and-mortar stores and nordstrom.com unit, respectively. Blake Nordstrom remained the public face of the company for shareholders in the absence of any chief executive officer.

Like his brothers, Nordstrom spent his adult life at the company, starting as someone who swept floors and restocked shelves with shoes, the sole product offered at its founding in 1901. Blake Nordstrom's principal challenge as president was to counter declining sales at its large, luxurious mall stores in the face of online competition. In charge of the company's chain of discount stores, called Nordstrom Rack, he increased profitability at that unit right after his promotion and helped implement innovative revenue-increasing ideas; one of these was to open small stores, called Nordstrom Local.

In 2018, the Harvard Business Review named Blake Nordstrom, who reported only to a non-executive chairman, one of the 100 best performing chief executives, as it had for several years.

Blake Willard Nordstrom was born Oct. 4, 1960, in Washington, DC, and was the great grandson of Nordstrom founder John W. Nordstrom.

read full article by Bloomberg on Blake nordstrom

For months, there has been a steady stream of store closure announcements from Sears, Bon-Ton, J.C. Penney and other retailers. And while mall and shopping centre owners appear to be holding their own at the moment, that could soon change, with another wave of closures expected in 2019.

The vacancy rate at regional and super regional malls was 9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2018, based on a survey released by real estate research firm Reis of 77 metropolitan areas across the country. That's down from 9.1 percent — a seven-year high — in the third quarter, but up from 8.3 percent at the end of 2017. That's also above a 10-year average vacancy rate for these malls of 8.4 percent during the fourth quarter.

Overall, U.S. retail vacancies remained flat at 10.2 percent during the latest quarter.

Henry Sy, who became a billionaire by parlaying a shoe store into the biggest retailer in the Philippines, has died. He was 94. He died in his sleep on Saturday morning (Jan 19), his daughter Teresita Sy-Coson and Jose Sio, chairman of SM Investments Corp, said.

Sy's company started as a shoe store in 1948. Today, SM Investments is an empire that includes SM Retail Inc, which operates the nation's biggest supermarkets and department store chains; SM Prime Holdings Inc, the largest shopping-mall operator; and BDO Unibank Inc. In the nation of more than 105 million people, his malls attract an average of 3.5 million shoppers a day.

Sy amassed his fortune against the backdrop of unstable governments, political corruption and economic contractions, notably the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998. He continued to expand his empire with new shopping malls and a bank that eventually became the nation's largest by assets. Today, the group runs 62 department stores, 56 supermarkets, a network of 194 SaveMore grocery stores and 50 hypermarkets.

SM Department Store is a member of the IADS.

read full history of henry sy

In 2010, HBC invested $150 million in updating Lord & Taylor. Seven years later, it received another $12 million renovation. Yet within just over a year of that final investment, the company sold the building, the oldest department store in the country, to WeWork, closing its doors for good.

According to one commentator, "while a presence on Fifth Avenue helps elevate the brand image for Lord & Taylor, brand image doesn't translate into profitability. As a corporation driven by stockholders' desire for stock price appreciation, Hudson's Bay Company sold its Lord & Taylor property to boost its profitability."

Profitability is something that HBC needs, given its large amount of debt. In March, the company reported around $4.6 billion in debt and revealed plans to close at least 10 stores including the flagship Fifth Avenue location.

HBC is concentrating on better potential stores: sales at Saks Fifth Avenue, specifically, grew by 7.3 percent in the third quarter of 2018 — by creating experiential efforts. In early 2019, HBC says it will launch a new in-store jewellery concept at Saks Fifth Avenue. At New York Fashion Week, in September, Saks made experiences a priority with a highly Instagrammable experience.

In their most recent earnings call in December, multiple HBC executives alluded to the fact that the company was behind many of its competitors in terms of online and digital tools. Helena Foulkes, CEO of HBC, said that the basic digital infrastructure the company has created for its stores over the last year "was not in place before."

The bright side of HBC's current situation is that it has been able to pay off a significant chunk of its debt, and its executives seem aware of its problems. Adaptation is a requirement for older retailers today, especially as brands sell direct to consumer and resellers cut into retailers' traditional margins.

A company controlled by a joint venture of the insurer Zavarovalnica Triglav and the German asset management firm KGAL has published a takeover intent for the Nama department store in the centre of Ljubljana, one of the capital's landmarks.

Nama is the acronym for *Narodni magazin* 'national store'. This was a chain of department stores in the former Yugoslavia and the first Slovenian department store.

Saks Off 5th announced the launch of Le Cloud, a ready-to-wear collection of wardrobe essentials that caters to women of all shapes and sizes. Le Cloud is designed by Amy Schumer and celebrity stylist and costume designer Leesa Evans. The name of the clothing line was inspired by the actress' interest in having her clothes feel like a cloud. The collection includes ready-to-wear separates and products were designed with soft and "light as a cloud" fabric. Sizes range from XS to XXL, while the retail prices go from $38 to $248.

Thirty percent of net proceeds from sales will be donated to not-for-profit organization Community Partners in support of the STYLEFUND project, which was founded by Schumer and Evans. The initiative aims to empower women from all economic backgrounds through the use of clothing.

Le Cloud will be available exclusively online and in-store at Saks Off 5th's 57th Street flagship in New York City and the Beverly Connection location in Los Angeles.

H&M has announced it will launch a gender neutral collection in collaboration with fellow Swedish label Eytys. The latter is a brand founded by two childhood friends, Max Schiller and Jonathan Hirschfeld, and has become well-known for its Scandi-cool aesthetic that places unisex design at the heart of its DNA.

Entirely unisex, the collection has a traditional workwear feel, consisting of everything from boxy leather jackets and heavy cotton sweaters to graphic tees and raw denim jeans. At the heart of the fashion-forward, normcore range are Eytys's signature chunky-soled shoes - from robust boots and sneakers to plimsolls. Each pair comes in a custom-designed box patterned with artwork by Stockholm-based painter Zoe Barcza. As for color, H&M says the palette will consist of bottle green, school bus yellow, beige khaki, dark indigo, black, and white. The color scheme is meant to be "effortlessly" mixed and matched.

The collection, ranging in price from £14.99 to £149,  lands in store and online from January 24 2018.

press release on h&m and eytys collection

read article: eytys x h&m - swedish bffs

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An annual ranking published by Cushman and Wakefield lists the most expensive streets in the world this year in terms of retail rent. Last year's number one, New York's Fifth Avenue, has slipped to second place behind Hong Kong's Causeway Bay. In Europe, the most expensive street is London's New Bond Street followed by Paris' Champs Elysées and Milan's Via Montenapoleone. Others in the top ten in Asia include Tokyo's Ginza and Seoul's Myeongdong.

Saks Fifth Avenue is shutting its women's store at Brookfield Place downtown in New York, roughly two years after it opened. But the luxury department store operator will be keeping the men's portion of this location open. The women's shop is set to close Jan. 5. The company said it had been using the store as a "test concept" to learn about how women liked to shop in New York. It said it "determined that [its female customers'] preferred format is a combination of our digital channels and our iconic Fifth Avenue flagship."

The closing of this Saks store comes as the retailer's parent company, Hudson's Bay, has been renovating Saks' flagship shop uptown on Fifth Avenue, giving its beauty department a facelift and adding more wellness options for shoppers. Also next month, Hudson's Bay will shut its flagship Lord & Taylor shop on Fifth Avenue, which is being replaced by co-working operator WeWork.

Thank you for your participation and contributions during 2018.

Warm wishes for a year of success and prosperity in 2019.

*Please note that IADS Offices will be closed from 24 December 2018 to 2 January 2019 included.*

Happy Holidays,

The IADS Team

Eddie Lampert, chairman of Sears Holdings Corp and founder of hedge fund ESL Investments Inc, has made an offer valued at $4.6 billion to buy bankrupt U.S. retailer Sears, one of the only options that would prevent the department store chain from shutting its doors for good. Lampert's offer calls for about 500 Sears stores to remain open and would keep 50,000 of the retailer's workers employed, according to a letter from his hedge fund filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The 125-year-old company faces a series of deadlines this month to find a buyer that would keep it in business as some of its creditors call for it to shut down, claiming they would be repaid more through going-out-of-business sales.

Lampert's hedge fund has been working on a bid for Sears since the company filed for bankruptcy in October. It features financing from a variety of sources and a complicated structure not uncommon in bankruptcy auctions. ESL also proposes to acquire Sears Auto Centers, appliance brand Kenmore, battery line DieHard and the retailer's home services division, the largest U.S. appliance repair provider.

Many retailers that have filed for bankruptcy in recent years, including toy seller Toys R Us Inc and department store Bon-Ton Stores Inc, have liquidated after no viable offers to keep the companies open were made.

Read full reuters article on ESL Investments inc's bid for sears

read article by iads: 'SEARS: a victim of old age, mismanagement or evolution?'

Europe's largest department store group, El Corte Inglés of Spain, has signed a deal with China's Alibaba Group covering retail, logistics and payment. El Corte Inglés will leverage Alibaba's data analytics, and artificial intelligence tools to provide customers with a more personalised experience. It will also benefit from Alibaba's B2C marketplaces (Tmall and Aliexpress) to offer goods in China. Alibaba will benefit from El Corte Inglés' fulfilment capabilities. Aliexpress may also explore the use of El Corte Inglés' distribution centresas collection points for online purchases made through Aliexpress.

press release on El Corte inglés and alibaba deal