Susan Chandler

It should be a retailer's recipe for a happy holiday season: low U.S. unemployment, rising personal incomes and millions of confident, free-spending consumers. Indeed, the retail industry's largest trade association...

There is a small but growing number of retailers out there that can truly claim to be multi-channel. That means they have retail stores, a catalog operation and an electronic-commerce...

Sadly, we can now add Joan and David to the growing list of niche brands that have stumbled after an overly ambitious retail expansion. The East Coast company, created by...

At most fashion shows, spectators signal their approval with oohs and aahs, occasionally punctuated by applause. At the annual Gold Coast Fashion Award Show, they mark a ballot. The show,...

Italians have a different concept of living well than their American cousins. Instead of having a closetful of sweaters or boxes of holiday tchotchkes, the Milanese and Romans save up...

The Village of Niles is experiencing high anxiety about the growing wave of Internet shopping. Nicholas Blase, mayor of the northwest suburb, fears that e-commerce Web sites such as Amazon.com...

It's been one long, crummy summer for Eddie Bauer. The casual clothing chain has seen its sales plummet by double digits in each of the last three months. August was...

Sometimes teenagers are slaves to fashion trends and sometimes they're not. Last year, the Generation Y crowd bought into Gap Inc.'s message that vests and leather were the must-have items...

When Mitsubishi Motor Corp. President Katsuhiko Kawasoe bowed low this week to apologize for a 20-year company coverup that put thousands of motorists at risk, he was purging the motorcar...

They come from all walks of life--doctors, politicians, Hollywood celebrities, at-home moms, children. They are shoplifters, and they cost U.S. retailers about $25 million a day in lost goods. Contrary...