The Container Store

Satish Malhotra is approaching his two-year anniversary as the CEO and president of The Container Store (TCS). During a fireside chat at the ICR Conference in Orlando, Fla. earlier this month, Malhotra answered questions on a variety of topics, including his feelings on his current job, how TCS is evolving in a post-pandemic market, long-term…

Kip Tindell, chairman and CEO of The Container Store, is giving up one of his titles to Melissa Reiff beginning July 1. Reiff, who has been president since 2006 and also became chief operating officer in 2013, will become chief executive officer. She succeeds Tindell, who co-founded the company in 1978 in Dallas. Reiff joined The…

During the National Retail Federation's Big Show last week, Forbes spoke with a cross section of retail CEOs (and one president) at the convention's annual evening soirees. Here's what's in store for Macy's, Bloomingdale's, The Container Store, HSN and Bliss Spa this year.

The National Retail Federation (NRF) today released a study authored by a University of Georgia economist who found that retail jobs pay wages that are highly competitive with those in other industries. The NRF's report, Wages in the Retail Industry: Getting the Facts Straight, is part of its Retail Jobs Week, an initiative from the trade association to educate Washington lawmakers about the value retail jobs deliver for millions of workers and the economy as a whole.

The term is thrown about at random, but what does it really mean for a retail organization to be "omnichannel," both from the perspective of consumers as well as the retailer itself? In a session yesterday at the eTail East conference in Philadelphia, a panel of retailers — Jessica Coogan, online marketing director, The Container Store; Brian Witherow, director of customer loyalty, Lovesac; Cricket Whitton, director of marketing and e-commerce, Design Within Reach; and Sara Onken, digital marketing consultant, Steelcase — attempted to answer that question.

The Container Store started a fund for employees in need and got a lot of pats on the back. A Wal-Mart store took up donations for employees in need during the holidays, and was pilloried for the effort. Two companies with two identical goals have two very different outcomes. What gives?

The Container Store is marking Valentine's Day with the launch of its Employee First Fund — an employee assistance fund that will provide grants to employees experiencing unforeseen emergencies, major medical situations, catastrophic events or other challenges in life that they're not financially prepared to handle. The Container Store is contributing $100,000 to kick off the fund, and after that, employees and other stakeholders have the opportunity to make donations. The fund is part of the retailer's annual National We Love Our Employees Day, a day it created five years ago.

The Container Store filed paperwork to go public Monday, seeking to raise about $200 million. The Dallas-based company operates 61 stores nationwide focused on storage and organization merchandise. It also designs and sells shelving systems. It said in a regulatory filing that it plans to use proceeds from the initial public offering to pay dividends to preferred shareholders and to repay debt. The filing did not indicate the number of shares to be sold or the estimated price range.

Now that a full week has gone by since the National Retail Federation's Big Show in New York City, I've finally caught up and found the time to put together a post on what I took away from the show. Here are my thoughts (in no particular order):

The Container Store has installed Jennifer VoicePlus for voice picking in its Dallas distribution center. At the Modex trade show in Atlanta last month, Christy Parra, logistics systems director at The Container Store, described the company's employee-first approach to the selection, implementation and start up of the Jennifer VoicePlus System.