Retailers

You think you've found the perfect gift, but are you sure? Just in case it's the wrong size, color, scent, decade, what-have-you, it's best to check out a store's return policy before making your purchase. That way your loved one isn't stuck with an ill-fitting, dust-collecting gift, no matter how well intended. And if you're the returner? Don't feel the least bit guilty. "Returns are a fact of life," says etiquette expert Peggy Post. "Just let the giver know you appreciate the effort and money they put into finding you a gift and say thank you."

On the seventh floor of a generic building on Deereco Road in Timonium, a young company is trying to change the way people shop online by providing a payment alternative to the credit card. Called Bill Me Later, the seven-year-old business is taking on major competitors, including MasterCard, Visa and PayPal, which made its name as an online payment provider. So far, Bill Me Later is holding its own. It is the sixth-fastest-growing company in the country by revenue - on track to bring in more than $100 million this year - according to Inc. magazine's September issue.

In 1996, online bookseller Amazon.com sold more copies of "Creating Killer Web Sites" than any other title. Last year, as consumers with more conventional tastes overtook their "techie" predecessors in cyber shopping, Tom Wolfe's "A Man In Full" became the favorite.Consumers who once only surfed the Web for software and hardware are shopping online for apparel from Gap Inc. and toys from FAO Schwarz, bringing Internet retailers their biggest holiday season yet -- and nudging the Internet a step closer to mainstream retailing.

Jos. A. Bank Clothiers Inc. has become an America Online Inc. shopping partner, joining retailers such as Gap, J Crew and J. C. Penney Co., the Hampstead-based men's apparel chain said yesterday.By aligning with AOL, which has 16 million subscribers, Bank expects to more than double Internet activity, David E. Ullman, executive vice president and chief financial officer, said yesterday. The year-long agreement allows users to access Bank's Web site from AOL's shopping page.Bank declined to disclose financial details of the contract with AOL.Bank, a chain of 104 stores in 28 states, launched a Web site in August and said traffic has increased from 6,000 hits in November to 11,000 hits in January.

Two of the country's largest retailers -- Federated Department Stores Inc. and Kmart Corp. -- reported sharply higher first-quarter earnings yesterday.Cincinnati-based Federated, the No. 3 U.S. department-store company, said profit rose 45 percent as it held down costs and sold more spring fashions.Net income rose to $87 million, or 40 cents a share, from $60 million, or 27 cents, a year earlier. Federated beat by 9 cents the average estimate of analysts polled by First Call Corp. for the quarter that ended May 1.Revenue rose 7.3 percent to $3.71 billion from $3.46 billion.

Consumers went shopping in force in the traditionally weak month of February, snapping up brand-name apparel and home goods and driving sales at the nation's biggest retailers above expectations."

TROY, Mich. -- Kmart Corp., the No. 2 U.S. discount retailer, said yesterday that it plans to buy back as much as $1 billion worth of company stock to boost the price of the shares.At current prices, the buyback would amount to about 12 percent of shares outstanding. Kmart said it will buy the shares over the next few years with cash generated from operations.Kmart is enlarging its stores and focusing on private-label goods such as Jaclyn Smith fashions and Martha Stewart lawn-and-garden furniture.

Rick Levin found the next frontier of retailing not in the wide open spaces of suburbia but amid boarded-up rowhouses and corner liquor stores in a stretch of East Baltimore.In a strip center on North Caroline Street with a supermarket and a Chinese carryout, Levin set out to create an oasis two years ago, putting one of his largest Downtown Locker Room stores in a former drugstore. He stocked it with hooded sweat shirts and Nike basketball shoes, hired local help, lighted the vast space with wall sconces, covered the floor in gleaming hardwood and pumped music through the speakers.

At Eastpoint Mall, scented lotions and soaps are nearly buried in an avalanche of (artificial) snow, snowflakes and snowmen at Bath & Body Works. Michelle Horton, manager of Wilson's Leather, is pushing the fur-trimmed leather jackets she says are hot this year. And Pokemon, the Japanese monster phenomenon, has taken over a chunk of the children's department at Sears, Roebuck and Co.It was more than a week before Thanksgiving -- the traditional kickoff to the holiday season -- but retailers were wasting no time preparing for their most profitable time of year.

HESS SHOES sold footwear to Baltimoreans for 127 years, but in a fast-paced world where immediacy and low-cost take precedence, a storied legacy means little.Baltimore and Washington residents might best remember Hess' cozy main street-style stores and friendly sales clerks. But in recent years, the company had to abandon its street-front locations for shopping malls, where it had to to compete with department store behemoths and large national athletic shoe retailers like Footlocker.The growing popularity of catalog shopping and the explosion of Internet commerce added insult to injury.

Retailers are cutting back on hiring sales clerks, stockroom employees and other temporary workers for the holidays - an indication that they expect another dour year-end shopping season. And that means the Marylanders accustomed to getting a holiday job are going to find one of the most competitive job markets in recent years. The average manager will hire 16 percent fewer workers this holiday season, according to a nationwide survey by SnagAJob.com, a job search site for hourly workers; other employment surveys offer similar forecasts.

Today is a day for jack-o'-lanterns and candy corn, but some retailers would rather you think about Christmas trees and candy canes instead. Sears will launch the holiday shopping season today by offering deep discounts normally reserved for the day after Thanksgiving. The department store chain is calling its promotion "Black Friday Now." Other retailers have also announced they are starting holiday deals. Walmart has 100 toys for $10 and is selling soon-to-be released books for $8.99.

You can pretty much count on sales most days at a Jos. A. Bank men's clothing store - part of the Hampstead-based retail chain's strategy is to draw people in with bargains. Company executives said those promotions have helped them continue to record sales increases, while most retailers have seen a decline in business as the recession has caused consumers to pull back on spending. The retailer said Wednesday that second-quarter earnings increased 41 percent as the company continued to draw in shoppers with discounts.

Retailers looking to draw consumers to their stores during the slow economy are trying to get shoppers to think like it is the Christmas season, when stores offer some of the best deals of the year. They're looking to woo people with "Christmas in July" sales that they say are as good as the bargains in November and December. The summer Christmas sale concept isn't a new one, but it has evolved to include more than just holiday merchandise as retailers look for ways to bring in customers during the slow period right before the back-to-school season, retail experts said.

NEW YORK -U.S. retailers' February sales showed their best performance in five months, aided by pent-up demand for new spring merchandise, and Presidents Day and Valentine's Day sales. Still, the better-than-expected performance didn't mean there's light at the end of the tunnel for retailers in the face of the across-the board consumer cutbacks, analysts said. They said some results were also driven by promotions that hurt profit margins. March sales will likely be negative with a calendar shift of Easter to April, they said.

Be careful with going-out-of- business 'deals' One of the fallouts from a bad economy is store closings. Circuit City, KB Toys and Boscov's department stores are a few of the companies that have announced they were closing some of their doors in this area. But as stores disappear, don't get caught up in the going-out-of-business sales, experts say. The deals aren't always as good as they appear. Liquidation sales often are run by firms specializing in sales and not the retailers themselves, said Tony Gao, a marketing professor and retail expert at Northeastern University's business school.

There is no reason to buy anything full price these days, especially apparel. Retailers have been slashing prices deeper and more frequently than ever before to entice financially strapped consumers. That means the shirt or boots you've been eyeing could be marked down more than once. Instead of stepping inside a store to keep track of new sales and snatch bargain-basement deals, let e-mail alerts and Web sites do the work for you. You can sign up for online sale notices directly with your favorite retailers.

Consumers are expected to pack stores and malls this weekend for a final stretch of shopping before Christmas, but they probably won't spend enough to turn around what has been a difficult holiday season for retailers. Desperate retailers trying to clear out racks of merchandise will pull out all the stops to squeeze that last dollar from shoppers in what has already been a season of steep discounts. JCPenney will slash prices as high as 70 percent on some items, while Loehmann's is offering 25 percent off entire purchases through Christmas Eve. Macy's will open 13 stores throughout the country for 24 hours, including Tysons Corner, Va., in the Baltimore-Washington area.

Faced with rising food and other costs, plummeting retirement assets and fears about job security, shoppers said they tempered their spending at Baltimore-area shopping malls and other retail spots yesterday while marking the traditional kickoff to the holiday buying season. Familiar "Black Friday" scenes of die-hard shoppers camped out before dawn for bargains on electronics, long lines at cash registers and packed parking lots were seen throughout the day. But many shoppers said they plan to spend less, wait for prices to drop even more and purchase gifts for a smaller number of friends and family.

Jon Vincent expects more visitors to his blackfriday.info Web site this Thursday and Friday than he had all of last November. The Boston-area resident suspects that mostly has to do with shoppers hungering for bargains in a bleak economy and partly to do with people becoming more comfortable with searching and shopping online. "Traffic has doubled since last year," said Vincent, 28, who reserved the blackfriday.info domain name in 2004 after trying to help his parents shop online. He also created the Web coupon site keepcash.