Swiss corporate giant Nestle has pledged broad new animal welfare standards for its worldwide suppliers, becoming the latest major food company looking to limit some of the harmful effects of its global footprint.

If a retailer is out of stock of an item just twice, 40 percent of parents looking for back-to-school items say they will avoid shopping at that retailer again.

As retailers look ahead to the holiday selling season, e-commerce platform provider Volusion predicts that online sales during the holiday season will grow 9 percent compared to last year for small- to medium-sized businesses.

Epicor Software Corp. has created the Epicor Eagle N Series of retail-management software.

Ken Hicks, Foot Locker chairman and CEO, took the reins of the retailer in 2007 as the United States was facing down its worst recession in decades. Under his leadership, the footwear and sports apparel company has managed to deliver 17 consecutive quarters of comparable store sales growth and its best-ever financial results for the 2013 fiscal year. Here, he speaks about the meaning of omnichannel.

Retailers must plan now for the IoT because the technology positively impacts top- and bottom-line business performance by improving omnichannel operations and enabling personalized and contextualized interaction with consumers, says a report from IDC Retail Insights.

The more merchandise a department store carries, the better. Broad inventory filled with brand names boosts a retailer's chances of "giving the lady what she wants"- the key to success, according to none other than Marshall Field. So it can't be a good sign that Converse Inc. has stopped selling shoes to Sears Holdings Corp.

A wet suit for surfers, made not from conventional, petroleum-based neoprene but from a natural rubber derived from a desert shrub, is one way Patagonia is trying to nudge along a sport that has not always been environmentally conscious despite its roots in the natural world.

In the early days of e-commerce, internet shopping was supposed to spell the demise of the physical store. Pure play online retailers would sweep all before them, rendering the retail store a historical curiosity. In fact, it hasn't quite worked out like that. Recent Accenture research confirms that more shoppers are planning to increase their purchases from physical stores this year than last. However, the positive news for brick-and-mortar needs to be tempered with the realization that what shoppers want from the in-store experience is changing fast, shaped by their digital experiences. Retailers who fail to understand those new needs and adapt accordingly will struggle.