Management

The CEO of Winn-Dixie is stepping down as the Florida-based supermarket chain merges with Bi-Lo. CEO Peter Lynch told employees in a letter that he'll stay up to another 120 days.

Belk will soon have new capabilities to improve customer satisfaction across its 303 stores in 16 states by using solutions from Teradata. The department store has selected multiple Teradata Data Warehouse Appliances and the Teradata Retail Logical Data Model to build a new integrated database-driven analytics environment.

Best Buy's failure to fulfill many online orders in time for Christmas exposed ongoing problems that haven't been resolved. Best Buy is often a target of complaints about late and unfulfilled orders and is "the only major store who routinely has these kinds of issues," says Brad Wilson, founder of BradsDeals.com.

Rue La La laid off 65 employees in Boston and other locations as its parent company Kynetic plans to fold sister property SmartBargains into Rue La La. While SmartBargains sells department store items, Rue La La sells upscale branded items to members only at a significant discount during 2-day sales events, called "flash sales."

An Osaka department store's poorly translated sale sign was one of the classic English gaffes of our time. But the funny signs were quickly taken down after the internet freaked out about them. The store, Gallerie, caught wind of the global snicker in the final days of the sale.

The thousands of temporary workers who lost their jobs after the holidays dampened the weekly unemployment report. But at least one retailer is hiring now. Home Depot said it would add 70,000 workers this spring, its biggest season. Last year about half that number were hired permanently as cashiers, sales, lot and garden staffers. Home Depot employs about 300,000 workers overall.

Even without Kim Kardashian starring in its next Super Bowl spot, Skechers continues to raise a super ruckus. A greyhound protection group will announce that it's collected almost 50,000 signatures from folks who want Skechers to dump its new Super Bowl spot — before it airs — because it was shot at a race track in Arizona that the group claims mistreats greyhounds.

eBags.com announced it was able to reduce fourth quarter customer care expenses by 34 percent compared to the same period last year. During this same period, the company's sales increased 27 percent over last year.

The National Retail Federation has issued an open letter to President Obama urging him to call for action on initiatives that support a strong retail sector when he delivers his State of the Union address later this month. The letter was signed by Macy's Chairman, President and CEO Terry Lundgren, who chairs the NRF Board of Directors, and NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay.

Delivering exceptional customer experiences is essential for any organization that wants to grow and sustain competitive differentiation in today's market. The annual Customer Experience Impact Report found that 86 percent of U.S. adults will pay more for a better customer experience.