Retailers should see a moderate increase in holiday sales in the stores and online this year, according to Deloitte's annual retail holiday sales forecast.

Retailers are working hard to transform their supply chains to a customer-centric, omnichannel model, but 80 percent are not prepared for the magnitude of change required, according to HRC Advisory (HRC), a retail advisory firm and unit of Hilco Global.

The grand golden doors of 500 Pearl Street, in Manhattan, have welcomed such glamorous names as Hermès, Tiffany & Co., and Kering, a French conglomerate whose treasures include Gucci and Bottega Veneta. The building is not a posh hotel or department store. It is the federal court for the Southern District of New York, a favored battleground for the decidedly unglamorous war against counterfeit goods.

Staples Advantage, the business-to-business division of office supplies retail and wholesale giant Staples Inc., has relaunched StaplesAdvantage.com to make it more accessible and useful to large and mid-sized businesses.

With omnichannel, consumers and their mobile phones are doing pricing, web shopping and so forth. But what about manufacturers? They have omnichannels of their own, and suppliers to those retailers are an intrinsic part of retailers' strategies, yet the media is paying this scant attention.